Originally Posted by cudak888

At least one was a Paramount done up to look like a Superior - the '81/82 catalog bike.

-Kurt

Originally Posted by BobHufford

p,

This is what I've unearthed over the last few years of digging around in the Schwinn Lightweight world.

Look for a four digit stamping in the headbadge. It will be a Julian date, the first three digits will be the sequential day of the year and the last will the the last year of the decade. "1352" would be the 135th day of a year ending in "2" (1982 in this case).

The early '80s Schwinn Superiors were built using frames and frame components (Nervex lugs, Campagnolo fork ends and Reynolds 531 tubing) that were left over after Schwinn shut down the Paramount area of the Chicago plant (due to quality issues) in 1979. They were built by a Schwinn sub-contractor in Racine, Wisconsin (Don Mainland). Don (and partner Roger Nelson) had a machine shop that built about 40% of the Paramount frames during the '70s bike boom. I've heard (but have not confirmed) that the chromed Paramount frames were all built by Don as the brazing was better (less visible after chroming) than those that were done "in house". The Schwinn Paramounts came back in 1983 as full custom bikes built at the new Paramount factory in Waterford, Wisconsin -- what has evolved into Waterford Precision Cycles (separated from the Schwinn company at the 1993 bankruptcy and co-owned by Richard Schwinn).

There were at least three different colors (orange, gun-metal-grey, and black) and a variety of decal styles. They were equipped with Campagnolo GS (Gran Sport) -- 2nd tier Campy components.

That's about all I know in regard to specs. Hope that helps.

Bob Hufford
Springfield, MO