[CR] Motobecane catalog scans

(Example: Production Builders:Peugeot)

From: "Kai Hilbertz" <khilbertz@googlemail.com>
To: Classicrendezvous Rendezvous <Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 02:19:35 +0100
Subject: [CR] Motobecane catalog scans


Comrades, rednecks, eurofags, guys and gals,

I'm looking for scans of Motobecane Catalogs from the 70's up up into the 80's. The format, whether PDF, JPEG, or whatever else, wouldn't matter as long as the images were fairly large. I've currently found 5 years online; 1974-76, 1979 + 1984. These are all US catalogs except for the year 1975, which has both a US and a UK catalog. Catalogs 74-76 are from Bob Hanson, 79 + 84 are from Equus Bicycle. I'd like to fill in the gaps 1977-78 and 1980-83, though of course any other years would be great as well. Do any List member have one of these missing years, either as catalogs or as spec sheets? If so, I'd appreciate any information you might be able to send me.

Did Motobecane introduce the graduated horizontal striping pattern on the down- and seat tubes in 1977 or 1978? The 76 catalog doesn't have it yet, whereas 1979 sees the pattern's use on many frames including both the Le Champion and the Champion Team. Wooljersey has a Le Champion (Giacomo Gabus) without horizontal striping listed as 1977 here: http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/Giacomo-Gabus/Motobecane/ But wooljersey also has a Champion Team (Sadiq Gill) with horizontal striping listed as 1977 here: http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/sadiqgill/Early-80s-Pog/Motobecane+753+Team+Champion/ Are both 77's (maybe they changed in mid-year), is one dated incorrectly, or can these and other changes not always be assigned a clear date?

By 1984 the pattern had disappeared. With more catalogs, this question and others should be easy to pin down a bit better. If any of you have documents but can't do scans yourself, I'd pay normal postage to ship the item here, carefully scan it, and then return it immediately.

Grateful for any infos...

Kai Hilbertz
Munich, Germany