Campagnolo History: A Timeline of Key Patent, Product and Racing Events

28 minute read

For three decades, Campagnolo was the measure every other component maker was held against. The firm grew out of the back room of a hardware shop on Corso Padova in Vicenza, where Tullio Campagnolo turned a racer’s problem, the time lost fighting the fixings of a rear wheel, into a patent of 1933. From there the story runs through the rod gears that carried Gino Bartali to the 1948 Tour de France, the Gran Sport, the Record and Super Record groups, magnesium wheels for Lamborghini and De Tomaso, the Japanese challenge and Ergopower, to a minority investor in 2026 with the family still in control.

If not already exhausted, here is a chronological timeline of key patent, product, racing and corporate events at Campagnolo, spanning 1901 to 2026, drawn from the research for the accompanying Ebykr article “Tullio Campagnolo: The Legend, the Patents and the Record.” It rests on Campagnolo’s own catalogs in the Ebykr Catalog Archive, the patents themselves, the form Tullio filled in and signed for the Cavalieri del Lavoro and the Italian press of his lifetime.

A note on dates and legends. Patent dates are the Italian priority or filing dates printed on the patents. Campagnolo’s catalogs of about 1951 to No. 16 carry no printed date, so the dates given for them are estimates. The Croce d’Aune story, which the firm itself dated to 11 November 1927, is a founder’s parable rather than a documented event, and it is marked as legend where it appears.

The paper trailTullio Campagnolo's patents, 1933 to 1982Every patent family found under his name, placed by its Italian priority date. Wheels and gears dominate the 1940s and 1950s; car and motorcycle brakes, clothes hangers, a corkscrew and a grill arrive with success. Select a mark for the patent itself.

The war: one filing day, April 1943Tullio dies, 1 February 1983193019401950196019701980

Quick releases and wheel mounting 4

The "1930 patent": none foundFirst patentCam quick release

1933 First patent1943 Cam quick release

Gears, derailleurs and controls 25

Cambio Corsa Paris-RoubaixGran Sport Nuovo Record

1943 Cambio Corsa1949 Paris-Roubaix1950 Gran Sport1969 Nuovo Record

Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels 15

Record crank First owned by the firm

1958 Record crank1981 First owned by the firm

Bicycle brakes 4

Record brake

1968 Record brake

Bearings, tools and the factory 11

Cars and motorcycles 9

Disc brakes

1962 Disc brakes

Home and table 5

Trouser hangerCorkscrewFat dispenser, grill

1958 Trouser hanger1966 Corkscrew1971 Fat dispenser, grill

A patent family in Tullio's own name
Owned by Campagnolo S.p.A.
The 1930 quick-release patent the histories cite

All 73 patent families, as a table

Italian priority	Subject	Title	Documents
4 May 1933	Quick releases and wheel mounting	Rear wheel mountings for cyclesAn eccentric axle clamp in toothed dropouts, written as a gear-change aid: the quick release in embryo.	GB 415,683 · FR 812,039 · CH 183,101 · AT 144,078
12 March 1938	Bearings, tools and the factory	Lubricator for hubs and bearings	FR 851,485
22 April 1943	Quick releases and wheel mounting	Fitting and locking the wheels of bicyclesThe cam quick release: a hollow axle, a lever-worked cam under a hood, a threaded cap.	FR 899,401 · DE 939,674 · CH 257,926 · AT 174,282
22 April 1943	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Guiding the chain and wheel while changing gearThe two-rod Cambio Corsa, filed the same day as the quick release.	FR 899,402 · CH 274,120
17 May 1946	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Chain for derailleur cycles	FR 946,446 · CH 261,030
7 June 1946	Bearings, tools and the factory	Gauge for the parallel of fork legsA workshop tool for aligning forks and rear triangles.	FR 947,368 · CH 266,007
16 October 1948	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Gear change for cyclesA prototype of the Paris-Roubaix.	FR 995,329
6 December 1948	Quick releases and wheel mounting	Cam-operated wheel lockA cheaper quick release, lever and cam pressed from one piece of steel; the cam lock itself called "known".	ES 189,005 · FR 989,960 · CH 283,625 · DE 806,200
6 December 1948	Bearings, tools and the factory	Checking a wheel's centering on its axle	FR 1,000,693
6 December 1948	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Improvements to pedals	FR 1,000,056
19 July 1949	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Gear change by moving the driving wheelThe Paris-Roubaix: the first part of the lever's travel frees the wheel, the rest shifts the chain.	FR 998,219 · CH 289,874 · DE 838,709 · AT 169,401 · GB 669,693
29 April 1950	Bearings, tools and the factory	Locking nuts on their screws	FR 1,036,250
21 November 1950	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Chain-guide roller derailleurThe Gran Sport parallelogram rear derailleur, first form.	DE 918,313 · CH 297,649 · GB 701,135
1 December 1950	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Rear dropout for derailleur cycles	FR 1,036,415
16 June 1951	Quick releases and wheel mounting	Adjusting the rear limit of the hubThe axle-stop screw in the dropout.	FR 1,040,852 · DE 1,634,130 U
7 September 1951	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Chain derailleur for multi-speed cyclesA single-pulley gear, forerunner of the Sport.	FR 1,062,372 · GB 726,801
13 June 1952	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	One-way clutch	FR 1,078,048
8 September 1952	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Speed change for cyclesThe Italian application is reported as filed by Marcello Gambato.	FR 1,087,957
12 November 1952	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Sprung derailleur pivotFor the Sport and the Gran Sport.	DE 1,012,205 · GB 732,035 · FR 1,085,622
5 May 1953	Bearings, tools and the factory	Machine for grinding bearing conesFactory machinery for hub cones.	FR 1,097,987 · DE 1,734,122 U
15 July 1953	Bearings, tools and the factory	Bicycle pump	FR 1,104,341 · AT 188,608
18 July 1953	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Chain-guide roller derailleurThe definitive Gran Sport of 1953.	FR 1,081,431
13 February 1954	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Derailleur detail	DE 1,697,587 U
28 January 1955	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Front derailleur	FR 1,118,326
12 April 1955	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Saddle supports for bicyclesThe two-bolt seat pillar. His first United States patent found.	US 2,920,911 · FR 1,146,981 · DE 1,089,652 · AT 193,726
15 March 1956	Bearings, tools and the factory	Seal between rotating parts	FR 1,169,362 · DE 1,128,770
16 May 1956	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Pedal	DE 1,106,200
24 June 1958	Home and table	Clothes hanging deviceA spring-wire hanger for trousers and skirts. The United States patent was granted on Christmas Day 1962.	US 3,070,270 · BE 579,764 · CH 373,158
31 October 1958	Bearings, tools and the factory	Tap for bottom-bracket threadsA frame builder's tool.	FR 1,238,157
19 November 1958	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Double chainwheel cranksThe Record crankset: chainring bolts sunk flush so a thrown chain cannot snag. Italian application No. 14.353.	ES 253,411 · DE 1,157,953 · FR 1,271,984
23 October 1959	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Front derailleur	CH 375,617 · DE 1,225,514 · FR 1,271,911
19 July 1961	Bearings, tools and the factory	Keeping water and dirt out of bearings	FR 1,295,278
September 1962	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Rear derailleurThe Sportman, with its offset cage.	FR 1,375,249 · DE 1,890,108 U
7 December 1962	Cars and motorcycles	Hydraulic and mechanical disc brake for motor vehiclesOne caliper, hydraulic for service and mechanical for parking.	US 3,182,755 · DE 1,430,705
9 February 1963	Cars and motorcycles	Mechanical disc brake for motor vehicles	FR 1,346,802
12 April 1963	Cars and motorcycles	Compact disc brake	FR 1,388,440 · DE 1,936,832 U
26 September 1963	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Gear change control	FR 1,421,381 · DE 1,908,106 U
18 June 1964	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Saddle support	FR 1,399,155 · DE 1,917,705 U
7 September 1964	Cars and motorcycles	High performance friction disc brakeA self-servo mechanical disc brake, drawn on a motorcycle wheel.	US 3,373,845 · AT 260,712 · FR 1,465,437
24 February 1965	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Chain transfer device	DE 1,947,857 U
May 1966	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Derailleur pressed from steel stripThe Valentino.	ES 326,969 · GB 1,140,212
5 August 1966	Home and table	Self-centering corkscrewA telescoping bell keeps the worm centered in the cork.	FR 1,537,226 · DE 1,976,478 U · GB 1,188,579
9 August 1966	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Guides for control cables	FR 1,533,652 · DE 1,973,834 U
16 November 1966	Cars and motorcycles	Disc brake for vehicles	DE 1,630,244
29 August 1968	Bicycle brakes	Bicycle brakeThe first Record sidepull.	CH 493,361 · GB 1,277,285
23 July 1969	Bicycle brakes	Guiding the wheel between the brake shoes	CH 488,589 · DE 1,937,668 · GB 1,276,561
23 July 1969	Bicycle brakes	Brake spring tension and mounting	CH 488,590 · GB 1,277,064
15 November 1969	Bicycle brakes	Mounting a brake shoe	CH 523,814
15 November 1969	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Derailleur (design)The Nuovo Record. Italian design No. 10543 B/69.	US Des. 231,518
April 1971	Gears, derailleurs and controls	DerailleurThe Velox.	GB 1,376,054
28 October 1971	Home and table	Spreading oil or melted fat on fried and cooked food	DE 2,252,707 · ES 407,946
12 November 1971	Bearings, tools and the factory	Screw and nut	ES 174,161 U
16 February 1972	Home and table	Grill	DE 2,307,575
31 July 1972	Home and table	Hanger for trousers or skirts	US 3,896,980 · DE 2,515,151
3 October 1972	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Derailleur (design)The long-cage Rally.	US Des. 242,033
2 April 1973	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Gear coupling (design)	BR 7,302,360
13 November 1973	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	CrankA peg on the inner ring so a thrown chain cannot jam against the crank.	ES 207,393 U · FR 2,251,190
11 December 1973	Cars and motorcycles	Motorcycle hub with disc brake	CA 983,978 · CS 194,202
5 February 1974	Cars and motorcycles	Conical disc brake	US 3,982,610 · DE 2,504,224
11 April 1974	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Bicycle saddle support	US 3,992,054
14 August 1975	Cars and motorcycles	Disc brake	US 4,056,172
29 August 1975	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Front derailleur	CH 609,296
7 November 1975	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Disengaging the chain from the sprocketsThe first chain hanger, the portacatena.	CH 607,823 · DE 2,648,928 · GB 1,570,520
1 December 1975	Cars and motorcycles	Wheel for motorcycles (design)	US Des. 246,172
6 July 1976	Gears, derailleurs and controls	Mounting of the transmission chainThe second chain hanger, worked from the shift lever.	US 4,135,727
27 December 1976	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Fixture for gears	US 4,157,608 · US 4,290,180
23 June 1978	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Freewheel	US 4,324,323
22 February 1979	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	PedalA sloping guide so the shoe slides into the toe clip.	US 4,244,239
9 March 1979	Bearings, tools and the factory	Tools for fitting and removing sprockets	CH 638,736 · DE 3,008,804
10 March 1981	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Freewheel	IT 1,197,400
15 April 1981	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Tubing for bicycle and motorcycle frames	EP 0,063,719 · US 4,437,679
16 September 1981	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	FreewheelThe first family owned by Campagnolo S.p.A. rather than by Tullio.Owned by Campagnolo S.p.A.	US 4,486,184 · EP 0,074,583
13 January 1982	Cranks, pedals, seat posts, freewheels	Freewheel assemblyOwned by Campagnolo S.p.A.Owned by Campagnolo S.p.A.	DE 3,300,710 · BR 6,300,041

Patent documents and office records: the USPTO and the Spanish patent office (read in full), the French, Swiss, Austrian, German and British files as indexed by Google Patents, and Disraeli Gears for two British specifications. Italian patents from before 1978 are not in the international indexes, so each date is the Italian priority printed or indexed on a foreign patent.

26 August 1901

Founder’s Birth

Tullio Campagnolo was born in Vicenza, at Lisiera on the country edge of the commune, and registered by his father as Getullio Romano; Getullio is also the name on the register of the Cavalieri del Lavoro and on the form he later signed for its archive, “CAMPAGNOLO Getullio (detto Tullio).” The spelling “Gentullio” that circulates online appears in none of them. The birth act calls his father, Valentino, a “villico,” a farm laborer, and his mother, Elisa Paiusco, a housewife. The family later kept a hardware shop, a ferramenta, on Corso Padova, and the business that carries his name began in its back room. He trained as a mechanic at Vicenza’s school of arts and trades and at 17, by his own account, was an assistant locomotive driver on the state railways “and at the same time an amateur racing cyclist.”

8 November 1925

Record Versus Legend

The snowy race on the record. The Coppa della Vittoria at Padua was run in rain and mud, with fresh snow on the Croce d’Aune, where Antonio Negrini dropped the field and won by more than five minutes, according to the Italian Olympic Committee’s biography of Negrini. In 2014 Jan Heine and David Herlihy of Bicycle Quarterly reported that this was the snowy edition of the race and that Campagnolo is not named among the favorites in any report of the 1920s Coppa della Vittoria. Every detail the Campagnolo legend needs is here except Tullio’s name!

1927–1928

Racing Career

Riding for the Veloce Club Vicenza as an indipendente, the semi-professional class between amateur and professional, Tullio placed sixth in the 1927 Brenta-Astico, a 225-kilometer race in his own province, according to an Italian sports almanac of 1928. Cycling databases place him 65th in Milan-San Remo and 24th in the Giro di Lombardia that year, and a 1952 history of Italian cycling lists him as the winner of the Astico-Brenta in 1928. He always described himself as a dilettante, an amateur, and his racing was over by about 1930.

11 November 1927

Founding Legend

The Croce d’Aune, as Campagnolo told it. In the firm’s own story, printed in its catalogs from 1974 and illustrated with a photograph of Tullio in snow and slush, he is racing over the Croce d’Aune, a pass in the Dolomites above Feltre, when he punctures. His fingers are too numb with cold to undo the wing nuts that hold his wheel, he loses time and in losing it he “conceives ideas which will change the mechanics of racing cycles.” No race report naming him has ever been found. Campagnolo printed the story at least four times in the catalogs Ebykr holds and no two versions agree, and later tellings move the race to 4 November 1924. It is a founder’s parable, but not a documented event.

4 May 1933

Patent

The paper trail begins. The earliest of Tullio’s patents anywhere has an Italian priority date of 4 May 1933 and survives as British patent 415,683, filed from “Borgo Padova 5, Vicenza.” Its object is a gear change, made by sliding the rear wheel along the dropouts, carried out “with precision and rapidity,” and it grips the axle with “a rotatable eccentric” instead of nuts, in dropouts cut with racks of teeth: the quick release, born as a shifting aid. The quick-release patent of 8 February 1930 that Campagnolo’s histories cite has never turned up and nothing earlier than 1933 carries his name in the international patent indexes, which could miss only an Italian filing never taken abroad.

1933

Company Founding

In the account he signed for the Cavalieri del Lavoro, Tullio dates his firm to 1933, “una ditta a carattere artigianale,” an artisan firm, whose first products “il grande Di Paco” used to win: Raffaele Di Paco, the Tuscan sprinter then winning stages of the Giro and the Tour de France. From the 1950s to the 1980s the firm’s catalogs called it Brevetti Internazionali Campagnolo, Campagnolo International Patents.

March 1935

First in Print

The first description in print. The Touring Club’s magazine Le Vie d’Italia, writing on the Milan cycle show, describes “il cambio Campagnolo”: a pin that frees the wheel in the rear dropout and locks it again with a turn of a handle, so the chain stays taut with no tensioner. It is the earliest description of a Campagnolo gear that Ebykr has found, five years before the 1940 debut the firm gives for its rod gear.

8 April 1935

Market Adoption

In the French press. An advertisement in the Paris sports daily L’Auto for F.B.’s patent hubs credits “le blocage CAMPAGNOLO” beside them with the win in the Critérium National de la Route, whose first six riders, like the first 11 of Paris-Nice, rode F.B. hubs “et aux Blocages CAMPAGNOLO.” It is the earliest document in the Ebykr archive to name Campagnolo.

1937–1938

Production Start

His family opposed the venture as a waste of time and money, according to the business historian Giovanni Luigi Fontana, and regular production of the rod gear began with money from friends. The hub maker Fratelli Brivio of Brescia, a precision firm of some 800 workers, made Campagnolo’s hubs and introduced him to Bianchi, which went on to fit Campagnolo gears across its racing range.

1940

Market Adoption

Bianchi‘s 1940 catalog, in the Ebykr archive, offers its Folgore road racer with a “Comando cambio tipo « Campagnolo »,” a gear control of the Campagnolo type, and adds that the model can be had without it. Campagnolo’s own heritage timeline gives 4 May 1940 for the rod gear’s debut.

Late 1941

Product Launch

The Disraeli Gears derailleur archive lists the Campagnolo Corsa among the gears reported from the Milan cycle show, five years before the 1946 launch date most histories give.

22 April 1943

Patent

The cam quick release. Tullio filed in Italy for the quick release as every rider knows it, a hollow axle with a cam lever at one end and a nut at the other, and on the same day for the two-rod Cambio Corsa. The French patents are 899,401 for the quick release, filed in occupied France on 4 November 1943, and 899,402 for the Corsa. The German quick-release patent, 939,674, filed on 5 May 1944, was granted only in 1956. Its claims are modest, and Heine and Herlihy read the narrow wording as showing that the cam itself was not his to patent. Whether anyone patented a hollow-axle cam hub earlier remains open.

July 1946

Racing Milestone

Gino Bartali won the Giro d’Italia, and Campagnolo’s advertisement in L’Équipe of 9 July 1946 claimed that every finisher of the race rode the Campagnolo gear and that it had won every stage.

1948

Racing Milestone

Gino Bartali won the Tour de France on the Cambio Corsa. Campagnolo’s catalog No. 12 shows him on the Galibier “durante il suo vittorioso Tour del 1948,” during his victorious Tour of 1948, with Campagnolo’s calibrated hubs, and Disraeli Gears’ table of Tour winners and their gears begins with that win. Bicycle Quarterly has dated Campagnolo’s first Tour to Hugo Koblet in 1951, apparently counting only the derailleur that followed. The day after the race ended, Campagnolo’s advertisement in L’Équipe credited the win in part to its gear without chain tension and gave a French address, at Cognin in Savoie, the earliest in the Ebykr archive.

11 January 1949

Market Position

A Rome dealer’s advertisement in L’Unità lists a “SUPERCORSA Campagnolo” at 39,000 lire (or about $68 USD), the fanciest bicycle on the page, against 25,000 (or about $43 USD) for a sport model “con cambio velocità.”

19 July 1949

Patent

The Paris-Roubaix. The single-lever refinement of the rod gear, in which the first part of the lever’s travel frees the wheel and the rest shifts the chain, has an Italian priority of 19 July 1949, after a prototype filed the previous October. It took its name, in Campagnolo’s words, from the great race, most likely Fausto Coppi‘s win of 9 April 1950: the firm’s catalog of about 1951 shows Fausto “durante la sua vittoriosa Paris-Roubaix,” in his victorious Paris-Roubaix, with “il cambio che ha preso il nome dalla grande prova,” the gear that took its name from the great race, while Le Cycle‘s captions of the autumn of 1949 call it only the new Campagnolo, with no race in its name. Serse Coppi had shared the 1949 race with André Mahé after a protest.

1949

Racing Setback

Fausto Coppi, by most accounts, won the Giro and the Tour of 1949 on a French Simplex and losing him was, by the usual account, the spur for a new gear. A twin-cable prototype of the Gran Sport, one cable to shift and one to tension the chain, was shown that autumn at the Milan show, where Daniel Rebour drew it for Le Cycle of 17 December 1949 with “CAMPAGNOLO GRAN SPORT” already lettered on its body.

1950–1953

Company Growth

The Italian Ministry of Culture’s business archive, summarizing Fontana, counts 36 employees after the war and 123 in 1950. An Italian parliamentary list of 1953 gives about 150.

21 November 1950

Patent

The Gran Sport. The first Gran Sport patent family has an Italian priority of 21 November 1950. Parallelogram derailleurs had been patented in France since 1933, so what it claims is not the parallelogram but its construction: links pivoting on hollow cylindrical bodies, a single cable working against a return spring, two adjustable stop screws and bronze bushings. Its novelty was execution, robust enough for racing and precise enough to trust.

1951

Product Launch

The single-cable Gran Sport went into production. Disraeli Gears, citing Frank Berto’s history of the derailleur, The Dancing Chain, reports that Campagnolo bought Francesco Ghiggini‘s parallelogram patents the same year. The assignment record has not been seen.

1951

Racing Milestone

Hugo Koblet won the Tour de France with Campagnolo derailleurs. Reporting the Paris Salon of 1951 for Englebert Vélo-Magazine, Daniel Rebour recorded the Campagnolo front and rear derailleurs, worked from the handlebar by “Passevitess” controls, “adoptés par de nombreux coureurs, dont Koblet au Tour de France,” adopted by many racers, Koblet among them in the Tour. During the race, Campagnolo’s advertisement in L’Équipe of 23 July 1951 showed Koblet beside his bicycle with arrows to its Campagnolo hubs, derailleurs and handlebar control, and gave the firm’s Paris office, 5 boulevard de Grenelle, facing the Vélodrome d’Hiver.

c. 1951

Product Line

The earliest catalog in the archive. Campagnolo’s un-numbered catalog of about 1951, dated by the Giro di Lombardia of 21 October 1951, whose first five finishers it prints all on the Gran Sport, sells the Cambio Corsa, the Paris-Roubaix and the Gruppo Gran Sport, with Gran Sport and Sport front derailleurs, worked from the handlebar or the frame. Its spare parts are numbered page by page, but no model has a number yet. The cover pairs Vicenza with a French address at Cognin, near Chambéry, and Toni Bevilacqua is shown winning the 1951 Paris-Roubaix on the gear of that name.

c. 1952

Product Launch

The Gran Sport Extra. A supplement of about 1952 continues the same catalog with the “Gran Sport Extra,” numbered 1012, on the bicycle of Fausto Coppi, “Vincitore del Giro d’Italia e del Tour de France 1952,” and the Sport rear gear, 1013/2. They are the first Campagnolo model numbers in the archive, and the name collectors give the Extra is Campagnolo’s own.

13 August 1955

Racing Milestone

When Louison Bobet won the Tour de France, Campagnolo’s advertisement in Le Cycle announced that he and three other winners rode its calibrated quick-release hubs. The same issue’s table of the race’s equipment credits Bobet’s derailleur to Huret and four stage wins to Campagnolo derailleurs, against 13 on Simplex and four on Huret. In France it was the quick release, more than the derailleur, that Campagnolo pressed hardest.

c. 1955–1956

Product Line

Campagnolo’s catalogs No. 12 and No. 13 still open with the rod gears, the Corsa and the Paris-Roubaix, each with its own page of parts, beside the Gran Sport, and sell “mozzi calibrati con bloccaggi originali”, calibrated hubs with original quick releases, already with large flanges. Only catalog No. 14, of about 1958, drops the rod gears.

c. 1958

Product Launch

The first Gruppo Record. Catalog No. 14 introduces the “1032 Gruppo Record strada” and its track twin, the first groups the firm sold under one name. Its rear derailleur is still the Gran Sport: the Record name belonged at first to the hubs, the front derailleur and, above all, the new cotterless crankset.

June 1958

Patent

Beyond the bicycle. Tullio filed for a spring-wire hanger for trousers and skirts (United States patent 3,070,270, granted on Christmas Day 1962). He went on to patent a self-centering corkscrew, a device to spread oil or melted fat over fried and cooked food, a grill and disc brakes for motor vehicles. Every patent family from 1933 to 1980 was filed in his own name, not the company’s.

19 November 1958

Patent

Italian patent application No. 14.353 was filed for the Record cotterless crankset, whose five-arm spider held the chainrings with hollow bolts and nuts sunk flush, so that a thrown chain had nothing to catch on.

c. 1960

Brand Storytelling

The firm’s own priority claim. An English instruction sheet for the calibrated quick release hubs, on the letterhead of catalog No. 14 (Corso Padova 168, telephones 23048 – 32536), declares: “The FIRST releasing hub appeared in the world fitted to cycles has been the AUTOMATIC « CAMPAGNOLO ».” A companion sheet calls the Gran Sport “The handiest gear.”

1961

Diversification

Amadori Campagnolo. Campagnolo entered the car business by joining Ruote Amadori of Bologna, a maker of cast alloy wheels and disc brakes. The motoring press of the time reported that the partners could not agree on a name and settled on both: Amadori Campagnolo S.p.A., at San Lazzaro di Savena outside Bologna.

1961

Market Position

Claud Butler‘s 1961 catalog priced its Challenge about 9-12% higher with a Campagnolo Gran Sport than with a Benelux Mark 7, and sold its Super Coureur as “The fabulous Italian FIVE SPEED Campagnolo Gran Sport Gear Model”.

1962

Product Launch

The Record rear derailleur. Daniel Rebour, looking back in Le Cycle in October 1964, recalled the Campagnolo stand at the Paris Salon of 1962 showing the Sportman for touring riders and “le « Record » pour la course, dont la capacité a été accrue,” the Record for racing, its capacity now increased. A “Record group” of 1958 had no Record derailleur.

1962

Market Expansion

Raleigh‘s 1962 catalog for the United States, with a “10 speed Campagnolo Gran Sport,” is the first mention of Campagnolo aimed at American buyers in the Ebykr archive. Importers had carried the parts before it: Ebykr’s copy of catalog No. 13, of about 1956, bears the rubber stamp of “PERRY BAYLISS WILEY (USA) INC.” of Spring Street, New York.

c. 1960–1966

Product Line

The Record rear derailleur in Campagnolo’s own print. An English instruction sheet lists “1020 Record gear complete” and its companion sheet “1021 Sportman gear complete”. Their letterhead, Corso Padova 158 – 172 with the telephone 28.985 on three lines, falls between catalogs No. 14 and No. 15, the years no catalog in the archive covers. The Nuovo Record later took the number 1020/a.

1964–1966

Industry Standing

In the January 1964 Le Cycle, Daniel Rebour counts Campagnolo among the three great derailleur makers with Huret and Simplex, notes that its headset is seen on most Italian bicycles and names its tools beside those of Var and T.A. By 1966 his roll of the principal component makers begins with Campagnolo.

Mid-1960s

Corporate Crisis

The ministry’s business archive, following Fontana, records a deep financial crisis, blamed on the inefficiencies of a firm built around the centralizing figure of its founder, which brought layoffs and a reorganized management. The recovery that followed was spectacular: more than 450 employees by 1971 and some 550 by the middle of the decade, when a new plant for motorcycle wheels opened.

1966

Diversification

Campagnolo magnesium wheels replaced Borrani wire wheels on the Lamborghini Miura. They came as standard on the De Tomaso Pantera from 1971 and gave the Lamborghini Countach its “telephone dial” wheels, and motorcycles took Campagnolo cast wheels and disc brakes too, among them Ducati’s 900 SS from 1979.

5 August 1966

Patent

The corkscrew. Tullio filed in Italy for a self-centering corkscrew, the “Big,” whose telescoping bell keeps the worm centered in the cork. The patent bears out the year of the firm’s story, that he hurt his hand on a stubborn cork in 1966, but not the claim that he invented the winged two-lever corkscrew, which Domenico Rosati had patented in 1930.

c. 1967

Product Launch

Catalog No. 15, the first in the run to carry the name “S.p.A. Brevetti Internazionali Campagnolo,” introduces the Nuovo Record, the aluminum-bodied rear derailleur whose ornamental design was registered in Italy in November 1969.

1968–1998

Racing Milestone

By the tally of the Disraeli Gears archive, brought up to date, Campagnolo equipped the winners of 27 of the 31 Tours de France run from 1968 to 1998, and of 42 Tours in all between 1948 and 2021.

c. 1969

Product Launch

The English edition of catalog No. 16 adds Campagnolo’s first brakes, the Record sidepulls with a quick release of their own, and announces “SIX-SPROCKETS HUBS ALSO AVAILABLE.”

November 1971

Product Launch

A four-language supplement to catalog No. 16 brings the Velox and the Gran Turismo, the wide-range touring gear that Frank Berto called “Campy’s Edsel.”

1973

Competition

Shimano launched its Dura-Ace group, and the Japanese challenge to Campagnolo built from there.

December 1973

Diversification

L’Unità‘s motoring column visited the Amadori Campagnolo plant and called it the only firm in the world casting magnesium parts by low pressure. On its fatigue rig a steel wheel lasted 45 minutes and a Campagnolo magnesium wheel eight hours.

1973–1974

Product Launch

Super Record. The group appears between the November 1971 supplement, which does not have it, and catalog No. 17 of 1974, which does. Campagnolo itself gives 1973. Its titanium was confined to axles, spindles and bolts, there was no Super Record front derailleur and the titanium-axle Super Record hubs it cataloged never went into production, collectors who have studied the parts report.

1974

Brand Storytelling

Catalog No. 17 opens with six pages on a company of “more than 2,000 skilled production workers” exporting “approximately 80%” of its output to “approximately 100 countries,” with factories that, it said, made parts for airplanes, helicopters, research rockets, sounding balloons and satellites. Its car wheels of “superlightweight Elektron alloy” went to Ferrari, Abarth, De Tomaso, Lamborghini, Maserati and others. It is also the earliest and fullest telling of the Croce d’Aune story in the catalogs Ebykr holds, with the snow photograph.

1975

Racing Program

Catalog 17a opens with a page headed “Sole Technical Advisor to:” that lists world championships from 1974 and, booked ahead, the Olympic Games in Canada in July 1976.

1975

Honor

In Detroit Tullio received the magnesium industry’s Design and Applications Award for the low-pressure casting process. He spoke no English, so, by his son’s account, the firm’s technical paper to the association was read by Valentino, then 25.

1976–1982

Market Dominance

Campagnolo became the specification that defined a top model in other makers’ catalogs: Holdsworth graded its whole 1976 range by Campagnolo level, Schwinn‘s 1978 catalog lists its touring Paramount with “Campagnolo available at extra cost,” Fuji offered a special-order Professional with the full Super Record group in 1981 and in 1982 Campagnolo’s sponsorship of the TI-Raleigh team put its gears on Raleigh‘s whole range of Reynolds 531 bicycles.

1978–1979

Product Revision

A redesign forced by regulation. “Between 1978 and 1979 Campagnolo changed the design of the right crank arm,” the 1982 American catalog explains: the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s rule on protrusions caught the outer plate of the front derailleur, which had to be thickened, and the crank changed to clear it. The new arm has a raised collar 5 to 6 millimeters wide and 2 high, against 10 to 11 and 3 on the old one.

2 June 1979

Honor

Tullio was named a Cavaliere del Lavoro, Italy’s highest honor for an industrialist. The Italian Olympic Committee had named him a Benemerito dello Sport in 1959 and given him its Stella d’Oro in 1978, and he had been made a Grande Ufficiale of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1970. On the form he filled in for the federation’s archive around then, he counted 183 patents and mentioned neither the Croce d’Aune nor a 1930 patent.

c. 1980

Market Expansion

A Campagnolo U.S.A., Inc., at a post office box in Houston, Texas, issued parts sheets that introduce the seven-digit part numbers that would replace the old ones.

c. 1980

Product Literature

The factory edition of the parts sheets. Campagnolo’s own four-language parts sheets, printed in color in Vicenza (Cartografica Veneta, Lonigo), for the Super Record gear, the Nuovo Super Record seat pin, the Record and Gran Sport front changers, the Gran Sport chainset and pedals and the chain holders, with the seven-digit numbers. The imprint still reads Corso Padova 168, with a capital of 1,850,000,000 lire.

February 1981

Product Literature

The Record brake sheet. Campagnolo’s four-language instruction sheet, “Il freno «RECORD» Campagnolo”, “CAMPIONE del MONDO”, carries the printer’s code “37.07.0173848 – 2.81 – 50.000”: by the usual form of such codes, February 1981 and a run of 50,000.

1981

Company Scale

L’Unità counted 560 workers in Vicenza and 200 at the Bologna foundry, with a turnover of 27 billion lire in 1979. It reckoned that Campagnolo parts could account for half the price of a racing bicycle, and about 20 workers were making the “Big” corkscrew.

2 February 1981

Legal Action

Less than two years after that honor, Tullio was arrested late in the evening at his factory at Porta Padova, as L’Unità reported two days later: a captain of the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s financial police, served him with a warrant from the prosecutors of Milan and took him into custody. The charge was illegal export of currency, it seemed to Switzerland, and the sum spoken of was 13 billion lire.

24 June 1981

Legal Action

A Milan court convicted 46 of the 99 defendants in the case. Tullio, “tra i principali imputati,” among the principal defendants, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 5 billion lire. By the account of his obituary he went through jail, the trial and the payment of the fine and was released on grounds of health. The outcome of any appeal has not been found.

September 1981

Patent

The first patent family owned by the company, Campagnolo S.p.A., a freewheel, was filed about 18 months before Tullio’s death. His own last applications, in 1982, were for a freewheel and for frame tubing.

c. 1982

Product Launch

New braze-on levers. Campagnolo’s four-language instruction sheet for the “nuovo Comando Record a saldare”, the new Record braze-on down-tube levers with friction washers of special material, warns that they must be assembled dry. Its imprint still gives Corso Padova 168, with a capital of 2,775,000,000 lire.

1982

Brand Storytelling

The American catalog put Los Angeles on its cover, “TECHNOLOGY TO WIN,” with Campagnolo as “Exclusive official supplier of technical assistance” to the cycling events of the 1984 Olympic Games. It also sold a limited-edition set of three belt buckles for Tullio’s 80th birthday, one of them reproducing the Croce d’Aune snow photograph, and called him “probably the single most influential individual in the history of bicycling.”

1 February 1983

Founder’s Death

Tullio Campagnolo died, aged 81. L’Unità of 2 February reported him dead “ieri mattina,” yesterday morning, and the register of the Cavalieri del Lavoro and the ministry’s business archive also give 1 February. The 3 February that Wikipedia and most of the web give was the day of the funeral, held in Vicenza with his body lying in state in a chapel inside the new Campagnolo plant. L’Unità‘s obituary called him the father of the modern bicycle and said he had ended his life bitterly, under the weight of the conviction. His son Valentino, born in 1949, succeeded him.

1983

Product Launch

The firm’s 50th anniversary fell in the year of his death, and Campagnolo marked it with a commemorative 50th Anniversary group, with gold-plated details and numbered certificates. According to collectors, set No. 2 was presented to Pope John Paul II.

December 1985

Corporate Milestone

Catalog No. 18 bis carries the new address, Via della Chimica 4 in the Vicenza industrial zone, evidently the new plant begun in the spring of 1980, and a share capital of 16 billion lire (or about $8.4 million USD) against 1.1 billion (or about $1.7 million USD) in 1974. Its company page moves in one breath from the 1927 puncture, now ending “Tullio Campagnolo loses the race”, to “a valid managerial team,” and names neither Tullio’s death nor his son.

December 1985

Product Launch

C-Record. The same catalog prints the top road group of the new range simply as “180 RECORD corsa group,” and its new brake, the one collectors call the Delta, was not ready: “The brakes set 315/101 is not available when printing this catalogue.” The C-Record road crank moved to a 135-millimeter bolt circle.

Late 1986

Product Launch

Syncro. Campagnolo answered Shimano’s indexed shifting of 1985 with its own Syncro system.

December 1986

Product Line

Catalog No. 18, reprinted, marks the Gran Sport group “No more available and replaced by the “Victory” range,” one of two new middle groups, Victory and Triomphe, aimed at a market Shimano was taking. The top road group is still “1032/F «RECORD» Road Campagnolo Group,” the part number of the first Gruppo Record of about 1958: nearly three decades under a single number.

1986–1989

Market Shift

By 1986 Raleigh’s English lightweights carried full Shimano groups on Campagnolo dropouts, and Bob Jackson and Hetchins did the same in 1988: the dropout outlived the group. In 1989 De Rosa offered its Professional SLX with “any Campagnolo or Shimano gruppo.” For the first time in the Ebykr archive, Campagnolo is one choice of two.

October 1989

Corporate Crisis

The crisis under Valentino. L’Unità reported that orders had fallen from 44 billion lire (or about $32 million USD) in the first quarter to 16 billion (or about $12 million USD) in the second, that 127 of 500 workers were on reduced pay and that four senior managers had left within weeks. The Benetton group came forward but, by the paper’s account, wanted to swallow the firm, while Campagnolo wanted financial backers. “Non sempre per i figli le orme dei padri sono facili da seguire,” it ended: the fathers’ footsteps are not always easy for the sons to follow.

September 1991

Product Launch

Ergopower. Campagnolo answered Shimano’s integrated STI levers with Ergopower, shown for the 1992 season. It is generally credited with restoring the firm, and every Tour de France from 1991 to 1998 was won on Campagnolo.

1993

Brand Storytelling

Campagnolo published its authorized biography of Tullio, written by the sports journalist Gianni Brera and issued after Brera’s death. It moves the Croce d’Aune race to 4 November 1924 and is the earliest known source for the line the legend now gives Tullio on the climb, in Venetian dialect: “Bisogna cambià qualcossa de drio!” (“Something has to change at the back!”).

2008

Product Launch

Campagnolo introduced 11-speed groups.

2018

Product Launch

Campagnolo introduced 12-speed groups.

2020

Product Launch

Campagnolo introduced Ekar, a 13-speed gravel group.

2023

Product Launch

Campagnolo introduced a wireless Super Record.

2023–2025

Financial Losses

Campagnolo reported losses of more than €24 million across its 2023 to 2025 financial years.

2025

Product Launch

Campagnolo introduced 13-speed road groups.

2025

Corporate Leadership

Valentino Campagnolo, who had led the company for four decades, was named a Cavaliere del Lavoro, the honor his father received in 1979. In a 2025 interview his son Davide Campagnolo said he had taken over as chief executive about 18 months earlier.

November 2025

Workforce Cuts

Campagnolo proposed cutting 120 of about 300 jobs in Vicenza. A solidarity contract of reduced hours, approved by 77% of the staff, avoided dismissals through 2026.

2 September 2026

Ownership Change

Campagnolo announced that SPAC SA, a Zurich holding company that several outlets link to the Pinarello owner Ivan Glasenberg, would take a minority stake, with the Campagnolo family keeping control.

23 September 2026

Workforce Cuts

At a regional labor meeting, Campagnolo confirmed that 90 of its 259 Vicenza employees face redundancy when the solidarity contract ends on 31 December 2026.

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