I am disassembling my recently acquired early 80's Zunow, and am becoming more convinced that Zunow is the best Italian bike ever built in Japan. If you removed any reference to Japan from the decals and gave this frame to a person knowledgeable of classic bikes, but not of this marque, I think he would swear this bike was Italian.
This extends to the Italian love of pantagraphing/component rebadging. This bike has a Zunow badged Silca - yes Silca - color coordinated pump and a Zunow badged Italian ALE bottle as well as an ALE cage. The seattube proclaims "Zunow triple butted tubing". The DO's are marked "Zunow Superbe". The crank is a Sugino Mighty, and the BB presumably is Mighty also, but both cups are marked "Zunow", and the adjustable cup even has three of the little Zunow hummingbird logos. Even the BB axle is marked Zunow. I've seldom seen component rebadging extended to the BB axle before, even on Italian bikes.
As reported previously, most of the lugs have a spade cutout. The BB shell has a cutout I can't identify. The seatstay caps are engraved with hummingbirds.
I presume the builder of Zunow must have apprenticed in Italy. Any know what Italian shop he apprenticed at?
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA