Greetings---
Today a friend called me over to his place and showed me a 1980/81 Rampar-badged Raleigh Superbe in a gold finish and sporting a complete Suntour Superbe groupo, including handlebar stem and dropouts.
Unfortunately, I don't have photos of my friend's Rampar machine (my naughty cats knocked my digi camera to the floor and killed it), but hope to at some point. In virtually every detail it is identical to Wayne Bingham's 80/81 Raleigh-badged Superbe, which can be seen on the Wool Jersey site, here:
http://www.wooljersey.com/
Catalogue images and specs for the Raleigh Superbe bike may be see on Mark Bulgier's site at:
http://bulgier.net/
I understand that both the Rampar and the Raleigh version of the bike were built in Japan, I think by Panasonic.
In addition to it being a very cool-looking bike, what is interesting to me and what was not previously mentioned on the List, is the slight deviation in tubing between the Raleigh and at least this Rampar version of the machine.
Previous posts when this topic came up in 2005 state that both the Raleigh and the Rampar versions were made with Tange Champion tubing. That is true, but my friend pointed out to me today that his Rampar has Tange NO. 2 tubing, and that the Raleigh has NO. 1 tubing. Evidently, according to him, both NO. 1 and NO. 2 are double-butted, but the difference is in the wall thickness or gauge of the tubing, with the NO. 2 being built to a stouter gauge, suitable for a max rider weight of around 200 lbs., whereas the No. 1 tubing is rated for someone up to around 180 lbs.
My questions:
1. Aside from the different headbadges and decals, is the only other distinguishing difference between the Raleigh and the Rampar versions of the Superbe bike the tubing? (I could see no other differences.)
2. Are you aware of any other differences between the two versions of the Raleigh vs. Rampar Superbe bike?
3. Do you know anything about the original price for either one of these bikes? Would the Rampar edition have been priced a few dollars less than the Raleigh?
4. Do you know how many Raleigh vs. Rampar Superbe bikes were either manufactured or imported into the USA?
5. If these are essentially the same bike, do you know what led Raleigh to use the two different brand names? Were the Rampars made first, before Raleigh decided to put its famous Heron on a relatively high-end bike built by the Japanese?
Any help on these fronts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Peer Jourdain
Whitewater, Wisconsin USA