Despite being the spitting image of the 1973 Shimano Crane, the 1985 Sachs-Huret New Success was a huge step forward from its Huret antecedants. Crucially, for Sachs-Huret’s new flagship derailleur, it sported lots of aluminium, only the rear parallelogram plate was a pressing, the other parts were castings, it had a dropped parallelogram (although without any slant). And, finally, real care and attention had been paid to finish, with silky anodising and well chromed small parts.

It was a demonstration by Sachs that they were no longer interested in the ‘French tradition’ of (mostly odd) derailleur design, and were determined to compete with the best in the world - the Japanese.

A good effort - but it is hard to catch up a couple of decades in a single bound.

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As with any derailleur bearing the Huret name there are a bewildering number of tiny and meaningless variations of this basic design.

This, lightly battered, example displays the following features:

• It is all silver.
• It is the short pulley cage version. This has shorter parallelogram plates (40mm) than the ‘touring’ version (which has 47mm plates).
• The inner parallelogram plate is aluminium and has a oval depression in its centre.
• The cable clamp bolt takes a 4mm Allen key.
• The adjustment screws are labelled 'L' and 'H'.
• The inner pulley cage does not have a spoke protector at the tension pulley.

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• Derailleur brands: Sachs-Huret
• Categories: Sachs-Huret - the admirable, but stubbornly unsuccessful, Success
• Country: Germany, manufactured in France
• Date of introduction: 1985
• Date of this example: 1986 (stamped 0586, week 5 1986)
• Model no.: 47.1D
• Weight: 221g
• Maximum cog: 30 teeth (Sutherlands 6th edition)
• Total capacity: 30 teeth (Sutherlands 6th edition)
• Pulley centre to centre: 50mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32”
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: sprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: aluminium