Re: [CR] 60's Bianchi paint colours

(Example: Framebuilders:Richard Moon)

To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>, <gwlone@yahoo.ca>
From: "Ken Wehrenberg" <wnwires@htc.net>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:13:16 -0500
Subject: Re: [CR] 60's Bianchi paint colours


Greg Lone asked about... "a 1961 Competizione project bike needing a repaint. It was originally transparent blue over a silver base over the chrome.?A previous owner stripped off 99 % of the origional paint.?I am wondering about the correctness of redoing it in celeste, not the moral issue of changing the color but rather if the factory ever built celeste 1961 Competizion's. Does anyone know if the blue, green, black etc colors were just for north America with celeste continueing to be used on the rest of the world??"

Greg, the guy whose shop I learned a lot in back in CO in the early '70s had, from his competition days in upstate NY, a Bianchi in what he always referred to as "Bianchi Blue". It sounds exactly like what you are referring to. I think he thought it was THE Bianchi color back in the year he bought his, so whether it was something like Thevenet's Peugeot color-- a brief tryst with silver after all those classic years of white-- or Celeste in the case of Bianchi, I guess that's your call.

Ken Wehrenberg, Hermann, MO