Gaggia × Campagnolo

Announced November 16, 1974, at the Milan cycle and motorcycle show, the Super Record Leva was unveiled not on Gaggia's stand but on Campagnolo's, sitting on a turntable between a Super Record rear derailleur and a boxed hub set. Tullio Campagnolo is said to have agreed to the project after complaining that the lever on his office machine in Vicenza had more play in it than he would accept in a headset.

The machine was developed by Gaggia's technical office in Milan under engineer Renzo Ferrante, with every visible metal part made in Campagnolo's toolroom. The lever is a forged and polished aluminium arm drawn from the Record crank, drilled in a line of seven tapering holes at the height of the drillium craze. The portafilter locks with a cam action taken directly from the Campagnolo quick-release skewer, and the steam and water valves wear knurled knobs machined from the same bar stock as the Record hub locknuts.

The body is a short column of satin-anodised aluminium on a black cast base, deliberately plain so the machined parts carry the design. The oddest detail is inside: the group head retaining ring is threaded to the Italian bottom bracket standard, 36 mm by 24 threads per inch, so it can be removed with a standard Campagnolo bottom bracket spanner. Each machine shipped in a varnished beech case with a peg spanner, a tamper and a spare gasket set, laid out in green baize exactly like the firm's professional tool kit.

Reviews were warm in Italy and baffled almost everywhere else. Domus called it 'a bicycle that has decided to stay home', while team mechanics were reportedly the most enthusiastic buyers, and several were photographed in hotel rooms during the 1975 Giro d'Italia with the machine running off a travel transformer.