retyred

I've been following this thread closely. I've sifted thru scores of bike pics without success. At this point I believe that it may be a homemade frame which could explain the lack of graphics. Maybe Luigi came into the shop after hours and built a frame. In a country like Italy there must have been plenty of obscure builders scattered about.

Andycapp

I'm pretty sure the nut on the brake bridge is not original. No idea of its purpose. I'm still convinced it's a Fiorelli- I'll try to take some better pics of my bike in the next couple of days to show the similarities. Other than the chrome lugs, the "Coppi" branding on the drop outs and the stay caps, it's almost identical. The man I bought my bike told me he thought it was a '72...

Hudson308 

Indeed, this frame even has the chrome peeking through on the head lugs, crown and chain stay...

T-Mar

That would seem improbable, given a 5 character serial number. Even if we assume one character is a year indicator, that means the shop is buidling at least 1,000 frames a year. If it's purely sequential, then the shop was over 9,000 frames when this one was built. While these are not mass production numbers, they are also not what you see from somebody who just wanted to try his hand at framebuilding.

Hudson308 

That was my thought. I'm curious to compare my S/N to the one on AndyCapp's frame. Might shed some light on similarities and/or sequencing.

retyred

Okay, I understand your reasoning. If you are correct then where are the rest of the frames?

TiHabanero

Looks like an old Torpado to me.

cyclotoine

I'm not having any luck finding a similar torpado frame...

Hudson308 

If this frame was indeed built by Fiorelli, my understanding is that they also made a wide variety of other bicycle types. Maybe the other serial numbers are stamped on frames hiding in plain sight... bicycles that you and I might not find interesting enough to investigate.

T-Mar

A lot of the smaller Italian brands were perfectly happy with supplying only to the Italian or European markets and never distributed to North America, so they're virtually unknown by forum members and rarely seen here. Simarily, a lot of the smaller USA builders that are familiar to us did not market outside North America and are virtually unknown in Europe. While the forum does have some European members, the vast majority appear to be form the USA.

chrismorg

naaaa I have a older torpado frame and nothing matches up to this one

Andycapp

Here's the pics I promised. Not sure why the color's so off, but I hope they show some of the matching details. My serial is hard to read but looks to be : 00805














-Andy

Andycapp

Wow, the color is even worse than I thought, It's an orange bike in real life. The "Coppi" decals are 99% gone, but you can see the un-faded "ghosting" where they once were. The Coppi "head badge" and Fiorelli seat-tube decals are intact though, as well as the "Z-50 Light-Weight Steel-Tubing" decal. It's funny how when ever you see "light-weight" specified on a bike it never is - this is seemed un-butted gas pipe stuff!

-Andy

Hudson308 

Thanks again, Andy!
Your pics confirm to me that these were probably made by the same frame builder. The RD cable guide, braze-ons, lugs, fork crowns... even your brake mount is similar, minus the mystery nut on the bottom. One huge difference - no tubing seams anywhere here, and this frame is pretty light for steel! Is that a weld seam running cross the bottom of the bracket? Anyway... I think you've solved this mystery!