Viscontea 1952
Condition: restored with original “coppale” decals (70 years old)

The frame design is interesting and quite original for those years, but Viscontea was always distinguished from its competitors by the originality of its construction details.
The saddle lug with the pointed rear stays has a very strong and powerful shape, together with the cables inside the top tube create a “brutalist” look of a real steel machine, contrasting with the delicacy and elegance of the fork head.
This frame, with both shift cables on the right side, is an unusual example of Italian racing bike in the early 50s. 1951 and 1952 in Italy were an important moment of transition, the first Campagnolo parallelogram rear derailleur with the new GS front derailleur and dropouts were born, in parallel Simplex (the Italian factory) responded with new dropouts with a fixing eyelet for the Simplex TDF and JUY 51 rear derailleur (they do not appear in the French catalogs and were probably intended exclusively for Italian manufacturers).
The Huret front derailleur on this bike is identical to the Simplex B52 model that came out in 1952, a couple of years after the Huret. Both, Huret and SImplex front derailleurs, were designed for cable routing to the right of the frame, for use with the double shift levers.

Tubing: Columbus
Dropouts: Simplex made in Italy
Derailleur: Simplex Tour de France
Derailleur shifters: double Simplex Tour de France
Front derailleur: Huret
Hubs: Campagnolo Gran Sport
Crankset: Magistroni branded “Viscontea”
Headset: Magistroni
Bottom bracket: Bollea Saluzzo
Pedals: Lyotard Berthet 1st version (without “made in france”)
Saddle: Brooks B17 swallow (50s)
Handebar & Stem: Ambrosio Champion
Brakes: Universal 51