One of the participants on our local vintage ride on the 29th popped up on a very nice Benotto 2500, which, on closer inspection, bore an extremely close resemblance to my late '70s Guerciotti (supposedly a '78-79).
His Benotto featured the same identical seatstay bridge treatment as my Guerciotti, same over-the-BB braze-ons, same chainstay bridge treatment, same Campagnolo PortaCaena (spelling?)-type right dropout, and very similar Prugnat lugs, differing only in the cutouts for the headtube area, while the downtube and top tube joints featured the same semi-heart shaped cutouts.
A few of the Benotto track frames on eBay have also demonstrated these same details, most commonly in the chainstay bridge treatment. I've also seen one other Guerciotti done in the same fashion, differing from mine only in the fact that the top tube cable routings were clamp on, not braze-on.
Any insight into this? I've dug through various archived discussions throughout the Internet, and I have yet to see any reference to Guerciotti frames as being built by Benotto (I've only found the seemingly never-ending Benotto/De Rosa discussions). Has anyone ever noted this before? Any insight into this?
P.S.: Still looking for a generic or Guerciotti 700C fork with minimum 222mm of steer tube. The aftermarket replacement fork I purchased ended up splitting in two at the steer tube - ruining a beautiful 120mm Cinelli 1E stem (that I had bought for $25 at the LBS two hours before) in the process :(
Take care,
Kurt Kaminer
Miami, Florida USA
cudak888@aol.com