Hi Guys,
Kind of got seduced by a very original `50`s racer that was lurking in Italy, figured it was time to an older vintage bike to the collection so went ahead and picked up this 1953 Torpado Gran Sport. Bike was very original, you could tell from the same rock hard grease on all the internals that it had been in a hot shed for most of the last 60 years. Condition was good and bad - parts were all there, campy gran sport, magistroni cranks, universal 51 brakes, campy hubs with nisi rims, ambrosio champion forged stem and bars. Alas the paint was no good - rock hard and chipped in some place, flakey and off with your fingernail in others, plus the chrome was very pitted and rusty. Plan was to fully strip, re-chrome, paint and assemble with as many original parts as possible - alas the seat post and seat were shot (replaced with campy 2 bolt and period brooks b17), the rims were splitting between the eyes so good period nisis rims were sourced and re-laced with new spokes and veloflex tubs, plus new consumerbles such as bar tape, hoods, wires, pads.
Frame was stripped back to bare metel and polished before chroming - nice little columbus stamps on the steel under the paint, decided to keep the rear quarter and the forks chrome, with chromed agrati lugs on show as per original.
As arrived - kind of bought it for the original bottle hanger...
As finished:
Painted frame - I painted it with 2k, stripes are paint, tried to mask and paint the torpado logo but went very wrong and went for decals instead.
Parts all cleaned and ready for assembly:
Bottom bracket went in nicely:
Forks and headset took 2 goes to get a good fit - don`t ask...
Front derailier and cranks go on:
Gran sport derailier was a joy to work with:
Out of sequence bare frame pic:
Polishing up the lugs:
