A neighbor passed away and his family asked for help in selling off some of his bicycle paraphernalia...I'm sitting on a few boxes of vintage goodies, plus a PX-10, a nice early 70's CNC racer, a Santana tandem and then this curious animal, of which I have no knowledge. I wonder if anyone here knows of this bike. Its all aluminum, from Performance Bikes, CORSA pantographed on the seat stays, well- equipped with Shimano 600 pretty much throughout. I'll try to sell it locally (San Francisco Bay Area) The previous owner was a founder of the LA cycling club, La Grange. Thanks for your input.

At first I thought it might be a rebranded Vitus 979, but only the headstock looks similar to the Vitus.
It's also not a re-branded ALAN and maybe not a TVT. I'm thinking, maybe it was made by a Japanese or Taiwanese company for Performance?

Yeah. Also not a rebranded Sakae Litage.

I know that the model name is Corsa, and it's Performance's house brand. I can only conjecture about the date. Mid-late '80s, maybe early '90s?

It looks like the other Japanese bonded aluminum frame manufacturer. I don't know the name, but they sold frames under the name "Gan Well", "Dura All", and "Nakagawa" among others. Confirming this, there would be a rivet in the joint between the top tube and head tube.

I like the semi connection to Dura Ace with one of the Japanese brands. Nice touch! Great of you to help this family out and take on a hard task, Kudos!

Yeah, and as a bonus, to the trade name for fatigue-resistant 2000-series aluminum alloy, Duralumin, often shortened to Dural. They were really trying with that branding.

Thanks for the input. If you were to suggest a few bikes that might be considered as comparable to this one (but easier to research!), it would help me to determine a reasonable asking price.

​​​​​​​This thread has some good matching info, worth a read through, but particularly posts #6 and #19: Alloy lugged , Carbon, mystery frame

There is also a link to a sold frame on ebay I found in a google image search, noting the Nakagawa connection and some frame measurements. Looks like it sold for about $90 as a frame and fork, but the Bay Area market is always hotter than other parts of the country.

Pic:





Description in the ad:

Late 1980's vintage 58cm Bonded aluminum Performance Corsa road frame & fork by Nakagawa, Japan.

This looks like the Japanese version of a Vitus 979 frame set.

The frame and fork weigh exactly 5 lbs., or 2,272 grams.

The bike was not used or hardly used at all, and has some light scratches, incurred while in storage more than from actual use, and possible fading or

discoloration on the blue anodizing. 127 mm rear dropout spacing, 2 sets of water bottles bosses.



Frame size: 58 cm (center to top)

Top tube: 56 cm

Rear dropout spacing: 127 mm

Frame Tubing : Nakagawa aluminum alloy

Seat tube diameter: 25.0 mm.

Bottom bracket threading: 1.37" x 24tpi (English)

Wheel size: 700C

thanks, that is a great help!