Unknown Track Bike: Mercian Super Vigorelli / Gazelle Champion Mondial

A few weeks ago I went to take a look at this old track frame, not sure what exactly was on offer as nether myself or the dude trying to get rid of it knew exactly what it was.

• Frame + fork number: '1875'
  
• Campagnolo faintly stamped on the rear dropouts
  
• Nervex stamped on BB shell lug plus the other lugs all look very Nervexy
  
• Unfortunately the fork crown was drilled for a front brake buy the previous owner and it's a bit messy.
  
  

Kinda fell for it since it was in my size, the details were nice and felt like it needed a more loving home. Anyway, the plan is now to completely restore it with a nice paint job and fresh decals...but what is it???

Is it a Gazelle Champion Mondial Pista?

• decals say it is
  
• but I've never seen one with the seat say / seat tube wrap around detail like on this frame
  
• and never seen a gaz with Nervex lugs?
  
  

Or is it a Mercian Super Vigorelli?

• the seat tube / seat stay wrap around looks similar, plus I have seen Mercian's with Nervex lugs...
  
  

Or is it something completely different?
Would massively appreciate if anyone can share their knowledge or opinion!

Also I plan to eventually build it up, so please shout out any component suggestions

Could be a Holdsworth. Probably not an Gazelle

Thanks!

lugs look wrong for a gazelle

Not a Gazelle frame , looks like a nice 1960 s or 1970 s British 531 frame .

Yep, Nervex Pro lugs. Those were introduced in the mid to late 50s as a factory-made lug that looked like a hand-cut fancy lug. I think that's a mid 50s or 60s British frame. Looks nice. There's a bit about Nervex lugs on Classiclightweights if you haven't seen it: http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/components/nervex.html

I'd say those round forks belong with it. I think you'll probably have to trawl Classiclightweights frame builders section and look for the clues which are the seat cluster and the lobster claw dropout, though they were common dropouts back then! You can see the frame number, though, and quite a few of the builders' pages on Classiclightweights have the frame numbering conventions listed.

Wow, I hadn't realised that there was such a story behind Nervex! Thanks for the info! Yeh the forks share the same serial number as the frame.

I'm very tempted to fill the brake hole though, and put it back to its original brakeless appearance

It may not have been brakeless originally. It was quite common in the 50s to race on the same bike that you used as your everyday transport. Riders would use a single front brake during the week and take it off at the track.

Yes I would assume that but the guy bought it from told me he had drilled the front brake recent, so he could ride it on streets

pretty sure I have the same forks and simlarish seatstays on my carlton flyer. Maybe an English frame ?. Not too knowledgable on this sort of thing though

Hi there, this is defo not a Holdsworth, they used there own rear dropouts, wrong shape and the only track/path frame they made was the Zephyr which had hand cut lugs, not Nervex. I know I have one :)

Oh and also, its not a Mercian, the number is wrong, all Mercian's have a 6 0r 7 digit number. eg my 1983 Mercian has the number 240383. Meaning it was frame number 24 in March 1983. I have owned mant Mercians and work next door to the factory for many years, used to have my lunch with the builders.

Thanks for your info! Would you have any suggestions to what it could possibly be then?! :)

Could be a falcon. They had wrap around seatstays, nervex lugs and campy dropouts, I got one the other day but haven't seen it in person yet. I opened a thread in the CP section yesterday.