1993 National/Panasonic Titanissimo TX-1000

I have been a forum member for some time but admittedly been much of a lurker (specially at the For Sale section). The wealth of knowledge and friends I have come across through this site is priceless so thank you for that.

I decided to make my first bike post about a project build that I have recently completed. This is actually my wife's bike as she was the one who found it, also it seems she owns the Ti lot of the bikes and I own the Cro-Mo section.



One of the reasons I like old bikes is because, often they have a story to tell. If this bike could talk, it would probably tell of its life and journey from Japan to the Philippines. My wife found this bike amid a hoard of bikes in a Japanese Surplus store we decided to randomly stop at.



Oddly enough it has sat there for some time as evidence of the rust spots on all the other parts that came with it. In a country where there is a deluge of surplus bicycles from Japan, I'm sure a Titanium bicycle would have been snagged even before they opened the shipping containers. I guess the reason why this was left in the lot because the seat tube had separated from the bottom bracket.

The shop owner had decided to keep it and have a fixing bracket fabricated by a local machine shop to make the bike usable. He decided that the bike frame was not as rigid as he expected so he stripped off the XTR M900s that came with the bike to build it up for his other bike. Fortunately I knew someone who could TIG weld Titanium so I managed to have it repaired even just for light duty use.



We got a good deal for the bike (around 30 GBP in local currency) had it repaired and decided to convert it to single speed.



A very good friend who is also into retrobikes, had a well worn pair of Sun Chinook Rims which he gave me and I was able to polish to a shine, I made replica decals on my computer and printed it on sticker paper and laminate.



I mounted a set of Magura Quick Silvers I kept from a while back and decided to break the cold grey color scheme with a NOS Tioga Alchemy Ahead Stem.



Of course no photoshoot would be complete without my favorite bike website for all things retro. A big shout out to Ed Edwards for the stickers. Thank you so much!



This was a fun, frustrating even at times infuriating build. But I guess it is all part of the fascination we have for old bikes.



Happy riding!

Good work on resurrecting it. I am not familiar with a 1993 titanium Panasonic. The 1995 catalog (see Gallery 2) shows a couple, but the 1993 European catalogue doesn't. Your bike was aimed at other markets than Europe I think. Probably it was a Japan or Pacific specific model.

Unfortunately we do not have Panasonic overhere anymore.

Thank you for your kind words.

Yes, I tried looking through the catalogues here when I got the frame. Unfortunately no dice, thankfully, broadening the search lead me to a Japanese blog which had the same bike as above dating it to late 1993 early 1994, I'm sure it was a Japanese Domestic Market model as there was a recall memo on the Panasonic website regarding these specific models particularly because of the resulting tube separation from the rather weak welds.

Oddly enough the 1995 models all came with full-TIG welding on all joints. Unfortunately Panasonic has seem to scale down export/production of its bicycles almost everywhere, sad though because they do make nice bikes.

This is the seat tube - top tube junction. If you notice the stays are welded much like any modern SMAW/TIG weld the main tubes how ever are welded in what Panasonic claimed in its Japanese PR as revolutionary welding technique. Sadly they split like crazy.

Cool. Interesting. I wasn't familiar with that. I do know Panasonic is still working with titanium a lot. Nice example with custom paint that is showing the butting really well >>



I have Panasonic MTB: the 1991 MC-Comp.

Ooohhh Droooooool, that looks radical.

I saw an MC-Comp running around near our place, and that is a nice bike as well! I'm guessing your's was European Market specific?

It is this e-stay model >>>



Mine was purchased as frame only however, so specs differ with Tange Switchblades forks, XT, Answer ATAC and so on.

That MC Cat is soooo cool! (Yours too Elev12k ).

OP, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that your repair has serious oxygen contamination and will break again :cry: Really too bad as it is a very nice looking frame.

@mechagouki

Yep I noticed that too probably due to the lack of shielding, this is why the bike will probably not see trail action anymore and will serve city riding for my wife. Thanks man!

@Elev12k

The e-stays are the bomb! That is one classic bike! I wanted to spec-up mine with Tange Switchblades as I have an NOS unit here with a 1" threaded steerer which I was supposed to replace with a 1 1/8" Ahead which I will have turned on a lathe.