caterham

The unique investment cast lugs used for both DeRosa and Merckx frames were a design supplied by Microfusion Italiana.
TMK, Ugo himself was involved in an advisory, supervisory and tutorial role only during the pre and first production batch of Merckx bicycles. Merckx himself had no technical knowledge of framebulding when he went into business and relied exclusively on Ugo's guidance and assistance . The initial production of Merckx were for all intents identical except in small details to DeRosa designs. It's been rumoured that those initial Merckx's with an Eddy Merckx longhand "autograph" script on the seatstay caps were in fact built by Ugo himself. The use of Reynolds tubing was a tentative first step in establishing a product identity separate from DeRosa.All 753 bikes would have been built by the senior, most skilled framebuilder at Merckx as Reynolds required individual certification in order to obtain the tubesets. initially, a framebuilder interested in producing 753 bikes would order a single 753 tubeset which would come shipped without 753 decaling. The builder would then braze up the frame and return it to Reynolds for inspection before receiving approval & certification to build with the material.

ps- 753 certification was a huge deal back then. The tubing was brittle and could not be coldset. Anyone factory certified to build with it was considered the best of the best. Many now famous builders, such as Kellogg, made their reputations in no small measure because they were able to obtain Reynolds 753 factory certfication.