Raleigh Panasonic Team Replica 12 restoration
24/10/2020
I invested in a bike maintenance and repair stand and began to slowly strip everything off. This was going to be a learning curve, plus I knew I’d have to invest in a few new tools…a thought that made me very happy. And it wasn’t until I finally got around to starting this blog that I noticed on the front cover of the 1984 UK Raleigh Racers catalogue, there’s an image of six cyclists and the man at the front appears to be on a Team Replica 12, which makes sense, since it was the flagship of the range. However, as I’ mentioned earlier, the specifications inside the catalogue clearly say Campagnolo Nuovo Record brake levers, but the lead bicycle on the cover looks like he has Campagnolo Super Record brake levers. I mean, I can’t fault his choice, these are after all, the brakes I’m opting to go with. Was there a variation of Nuovo Record levers that looked like those lovely drilled out Super Record levers? I suspect it’s more likely that professional riders actually used a Super Record groupset, as the BiciclettaVintage website notes on former pro-rider Peter Winnen’s 1984 bike.
The cyclist on the catalogue cover has Super Record levers, despite the specs suggesting otherwise (click for larger image)
The serial number on the frame I purchased from Alistair in Sandy Hook is quite weathered, but looks like WA4 then 01646. According to a number of sites and in particular raleigh-sb4059.com, the W indicates that it was built in Nottingham, the A indicates that it was built in January and the 4 indicates in was 1984.
According to that site…
• The ‘W’ reference was introduced in late 1973
• The ‘W’ reference indicates Worksop built until May 1981
• The ‘W’ reference indicates Nottingham Lightweight Unit built from October 1981
• The 2nd letter is one of 12 assigned letters denoting the month of production
• The first number in the sequence is the year of production, repeated every 10 years between 1973 and 1989
• The last 6 numbers are reportedly a production number
However, another website, SheldonBrown.com, suggests that the second letter is in fact the fortnight that the frame was built. If that’s the case, this frame I have could be among the very first Team Replica 12s ever built, assuming production started at the beginning of 1984 – something else I’d like to try and confirm.
The back cover of the 1984 UK Raleigh catalogue.
There were a confusing number of variations of this beautiful bike. A gentleman by the name of Neil McGowran has a great blog about a 1984 Panasonic Raleigh SBDU (Special Bikes Development Unit) Services des Courses restoration and there are some clearly noticeable differences. Neil also has an interesting thread on a 1985 Raleigh Weinmann 531c Team Replica. This is where it gets a bit confusing as Raleigh Weinmann was a different team to Raleigh Panasonic and also raced between 84 and 85. The bikes looked almost identical, but featured different components. The very best variation you could buy – if money was no object – was a custom built frame made to individual specifications, from 50cm to 60.5cm in 5mm increments with 753 Pro tubing.
The lesser spec’d 1984 Team Cadet 10 also featured Weinmann brakes, Huret rear derailleur and Maillard wheels, but it had 501 tubing on the frame. There might have also been a variation called a Team Corsa 12 that had the same colors, but came with a Shimano groupset.
Panasonic was a Dutch professional cycling team, formed in 1984 when the main sponsors TI–Raleigh withdrew sponsorship. Team bikes were only provided by Raleigh between 84-85 and according to Wikipedia, were always fitted with Italian Campagnolo groupsets. Wiki also says that by 1984, all Raleighs for the US market, except the SBDU bikes (made in Ilkeston) and the top of the range road bikes (made in Nottingham), were produced in the Far East.
