Blasphemy and sacrilege!!!
Heretic that I am... I'm going directly to the inner circle of hell! (Dante's Inferno)
Campagnolo introduced the Victory and Triomphe gruppos in 1983.
They were attempting to regain market share in the lucrative mid-range component market that they lost to the Japanese makers.
Only a few European bike manufactures were using the low end Campy Nuovo Gran Sport gruppo with the uber ugly cheap looking rear derailleur. Shimano and Suntour were eating Campagnolo's lunch in that arena.
The Nuovo Record gruppo was long in the tooth, little changed in ~20 years. The basic rear derailleur design went back to 1951!
Super Record components were just an over priced gussied up version of the Nuovo Record gruppo with some lightening and titanium parts.
The Triomphe gruppo was targeted to replace Nuovo Gran Sport components while the Victory gruppo was supposed to replace the Nuovo Record gruppo.
In 1984-5 C-Record was supposed to replace the Super Record gruppo as Campy's top of the line offering.
Several things derailed those plans:
The first was that Campianistas were so locked into the stogy appearance of NR/SR components that they totally rejected the looks of the new gruppos. The designs of some or most of the new components were drastic departures from the easily recognizable 20 year old appearances of NR and SR components.
Next, the wholesale prices for the new gruppos were much more expensive than for NR and SR gruppos. Add to that, Campagnolo lost control of their OEM distribution network in Europe. NR and SR production was supposed to have stopped by the mid 80's but there was so much inventory of the old components in the pipeline that full Campy NR bikes were being sold as late as 1988!
Last but probably most important, most European bike manufacturers were reluctant to switch from known products to gruppos that hadn't been proven successful in the market place.
Also, the Pro Peloton was still using Super Record gruppos past the mid 80's. In the US the pro bike set were/are the most slavish adherents to style, fashion and what the pros are doing than possibly any other sporting activity!!!
After 1985 some European bike makers like Bianchi and Gitane started offering a few mid range models with Triomphe and Victory gruppos.
By the late 80's Campy threw in thew towel started offering a wider assortment of gruppos with modern designs to try to compete against Shimano. They also finally switched to drop arm rear derailleur designs like those used by Shimano and Suntour.
BTW, the geometry on the Triomphe and Victory rear derailleurs is almost the same as was used on the 1966 Nuovo Record derailleurs (which was about the same as Camp's 1951 design). They had the same cage geometry as the 2nd generation Super Record derailleurs which allowed a 28T freewheel sprocket instead of 26T of the NR and early SR derailleurs. The early C-Record derailleurs were about the same.
This is a very loose analysis of the history of Campagnolo rear derailleurs during the 1980's. I was riding off road most of the time from the 80's until 2006. Lots of things happened during those years that I was into.
The important thing to note is where the Triomphe and Victory gruppos fit into the scheme....
verktyg
Chas.