I recently picked up a Bianchi Specialissima serial # 160 342. So far th e earliest Specialissimas I have been able to find on the Internet are M ark Bulgier's bike (serial # 160 320) and John Barron's (serial # 160 68 2). The only other early bike I saw was the one I owned and unfortunatel y had to sell (too small) and it was somewhere around 160 4xx.
Of the above 4 the 3 lower numbered bikes (john Barron's being the highe st) are all black. The bike I now have has CAM 61 lockrings as did my pr evious bike so I am assuming it is from around that period. Does anyone know if there was a choice of colors as far as the early bikes are conce rned? I know later on metallic green, blue and I think red was offered i n addition to black. Was Celeste ever an optional color - seems like it would have been?
Thanks,
Mike Short,
Austin Texas.