seypat

When did you get this? Super sweeeet! Pink means super chick magnet because to ride it you have to have nads the size of Hippity Hops. I will be waiting to see the finished bike.

seypat

I never knew that dropout eyelet-itis was a thing. It never bothered me. I'm guessing they were useful back in the day when people only had a bike as their primary mode of transportation. You rode the bike to the race with all of your racing/prep gear. Changed into racing mode, raced, reversed the procedure then rode home.

RobbieTunes

The Super Corsa with eyelets was most likely for brevets, back in the days before cell phones, when you were truly unsupported. You had to carry stuff, or it might rain, and a wet butt for 150 miles is not fun. That's how it was explained to me.

I took the frame to a builder, since it already had no paint. He said "those are OEM, and you'd better leave them alone."

I might add, the eyelets were on the tubing, not the dropouts.

fleslider 

My guess would be that its a German Centurion model, as they never went to the late 80's graphics on the frames. they stuck with the 84-85 Graphics.

I have talked to on facebook the owner of this one that Robbie posted. and he bought the frame from a guy in Italy 7 years ago or so. and that was the only source of the frames at that time. he had done some extensive searching on information for this, but there was nothing out there. he refers to it as a 1989 Model.

He got it as a Frame and fork, picked the Sante for asthetics , it was a ground up build, he has never seen one of these that was a factory build , they have all been Frame/Fork build ups

fleslider 

Which model was 650b ? The Lemans in the pick i think is a 700c bike.. im confused..

seypat

oooooohhhhh, shiny!

texaspandj

I think an '89 but yes lemans However in 650C.
There was one in Texas a couple of months back.

fleslider 

oops meant to say 650c, im guessing it was a smaller size frame?

texaspandj

Yes @fleslider , made for smaller riders, I presume without having to go two different size wheels.

cdaniels

UPDATE

I am outfitting it with Shimano 600 Tricolor parts. So far I am only missing the headset and brake levers, but they are on the way. I ended up using a set of Campagnolo Record hubs with DT Swiss rims that I already had. The stem is 3TTT with Nitto bullhorn bars and an Avocet fluted seat post.

markwesti

How about some progress pictures ? Please .

markwesti

here is the IM that was made for junior riders with the small front end . This one is kind of a hoot .

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/la...813139624.html



Factory trim

cdaniels

So far

cdaniels

markwesti

Thanks @cdaniels . Very nice ! Really glad to see black tires , those white tires do nothing for me . Black/Black/Black .

Love those DT shifters too .

texaspandj

What length is the top tube?

canklecat

12 parsecs, give or take, depending on gravitational wave variables.

RobbieTunes

That's nice. Really nice. Mine is a long way off, but there will be black.

Hummer

I agree with @T-Mar, this Turbo "funny" bike is a model from the German Distributor.

Here is my reasoning.

Based on the serial number they are from 1988.

The decals match the 1988 decals of Centurion in Germany.

The serial numbers of these bicycles are from Yamaguchi of Japan. Yamaguchi was contracted to make frames for many brand names around the world.
I have not seen any Western States Imports (WSI) brand bicycle with a Yamaguchi serial number.

Another 1988 Centurion of Germany model was the Triathlon Expert and had a Yamaguchi serial number.
This model's tubing was also Tange Infinity double butted.
This model featured the 1987 USA model Ironman "Miami Vice" magenta (or fuchsia) and yellow paint scheme, but the German distributor's decals/logos.
(The German distributor appears to borrow things from the USA distributor.)
The one bicycle that I have seen pictures of had Suntour SVX components.

So, the German distributor appears to have been using Yamaguchi as a frame supplier in 1988.

I have seen four serial numbers for this Turbo model and all are from the same year and month of frame manufacture.
The sequence numbers of all four are in a range of 65 numbers.

If you assume that the serial number distribution is random, and it may not be a good assumption because of the small sample size, then what does this imply?

The 1988 Turbo was a one time manufacture of a limited series of frames?

RobbieTunes

German "distributor" means what, exactly? Purchased rights from WSI, or able to use the name and font, etc? I don't think anyone is disagreeing with Yamaguchi mfg, or the dates or the serial numbers, these are pretty much engraved in steel (vs. set in stone.)

I just wonder about the connection, if any, by way of the use of Centurion, Turbo, and the font/etc.

I have an Asian market Centurion Carbon-R, and the serial number denotes 1991, and it's nearly identical to the 1988 Ironman Carbon. For some reason, I consider it connected to WSI's Centurions. Perhaps I'm using the same logic with the '88 Turbo.

Of course, there is also the Centurion that is totally different. Is that a continuation of the German "distributor," with a complete change in font, etc?

Inquiring minds want to know. Maybe.

Background. I used to run for a shoe company, basically just enough to get entries to some races, free gear, etc. I had a daily route that was about 10 miles, none of it marked, just felt like it. No GPS back then, couldn't drive it due to trails, etc. I looked at the clock radio, bolted out the door, looked at it again when I got back. My goal on easy days was 57:00 or so, average days 55:00 or so, and hard days 51-52:00. Didn't carry a watch and didn't know the splits. Did this for two years or so, and our group ran it every Sunday am as a group run, no one finished alone, as we finished, and ran back and got every single runner.

Enter an engineer into our running community. He measured the course, marked the miles, and came up with 9.92 miles. What I thought was the halfway mark was really about 7 miles in. He would call out splits, when we were just trying to hammer until our lungs exploded.

What I thought was 10 miles was really 9.92, and my 3800 and 3700 mile years were actually a bit less. I running journal said "10," and stayed that way, but that route was never the same for me again. He even changed it to get an even 10.

Killed the buzz.
Would I have run 14:37 instead of 14:39 in a 5K if I'd run those extra .08 miles every day? 29:33 in 10K instead of 29:36? And here's the killer, 2:19:59 in the marathon instead of 2:20:57? (sub 2:20:00 put you in the '88 Olympic Trials).

So, maybe I don't wanna know.
Maybe I do. I dunno.

I'll just build the damn bike. Says Centurion on the side in a font I recognize. Good enough. Still a cool bike.


Even with my buzz killed....

Hummer

WSI only trademarked the name Centurion in the USA.

https://www.centurion.de/en/about-centurion-bikes/centurion-philosophy-125

T-Mar

Trademarks are governed individually by each nation. Anybody, if they wanted to, could trademark a Centurion bicycle brand in another country where it had not already been registered. When CBC bought WSI in late 1989, they discontinued the Centurion brand name in favour of Diamondback. CBC wanted to build a single, globally recognized brand, in the manner of Raleigh. They could have chosen Centurion but the number of different Centurion brand owners throughout the world made that impractical. One of reasons that they settled on Diamondback was the ease of acquiring trademarks throughout the world.

When a company registers a trademark, there is no obligation to an owner in another country. However, if they wanted to, they could go into partnership and pool resources. This would typically result in a license fee and/or royalties to the originator of the brand. However, local preferences often resulted in each owner designing unique models, as if often seen with the European Bianchi models and is even more pronounced with the Koga-Miyata, In the case of Bianchi, there were even significant difference between the Canadian and USA models in the 1980s. Speaking of Canada, Tano owned the Centurion trademark during the 1970s, though WSI did acquire it in the early 1980s. When it was not renewed in the very late 1990s, the German company, Centurion Kenner AG, registered it in Canada.

In the case of the German Centurion brand, it has been suggested that there was a relationship with WSI. Even so, there are notable differences in 1980s models, indicating that the German Centurion bicycles were being tailored to European tastes and that it was operated largely, if not totally, independent from WSI by the time of the subject bicycle. The German Centurion brand was being distributed throughout much of Europe, with the notable exception of the Scandanavian countries, whichhad a separate Danish owner. The source for the subject Turbo TT have been routinely reported as England, which were receiving their bicycles via the German Centurion company.

The Yamguchi sourcing has already been discussed by myself and Hummer. For me, all the evidence points to a model originating with the German Centurion company. and having little, if any, WSI involvement.

RobbieTunes

Buzz now beaten flat as a pancake.
Maybe I can expand it a little to few German Centurions.

seypat

Das Eisen der Mann has a good ring to it.

seypat

You're killing me. Combine flat as a pancake with where you live now. What do you get? This, of course. Dang!