Super Champion's second design for a non-fork-type derailleur was much more conventional than their rather interesting first effort. Throwing originality to the winds, they adopted a low-normal, pull-chain design, with the top pulley concentric with the sliding rod - all very similar to the 20 year old Le Chemineau configuration (and its many imitators).

As is typical of Super Champion (and many other French manufacturers) this basic design came in a plethora of bewildering variations, with appropriately confusing names. Some of these variations might include:

• A 1938 Grand Sport, with a 76mm bronze pulley cage arm and a 12T guide pulley. This was also available in a variation suitable for tandems.
• A 1939 Grand Sport with a 76mm steel pulley cage arm and a 12T guide pulley.
• A 1939 Grand Sport Léger, with a 66mm steel pulley cage arm and a 10T guide pulley.
• ... even Super Champion had to pause briefly for a world war, but then introduced...
• the 1946 Sport Léger, with a 66mm steel pulley cage arm, an aluminium main nut at the p-pivot and a 10T guide pulley. This was also available in a variation suitable for tandems.
• the 1946 Sport 46 Dural, which had a 66mm aluminium pulley cage, an aluminium main nut at the p-pivot and a toothless guide pulley with chain pusher plates.
• the 1947 Sport Luxe - which is possibly identical to the Sport 46 Dural in everything but name.
• the 1947 Sport, a steel version of the Sport Luxe, also with chain pusher plates.

I am fairly confident that the solo bike version of this basic design shrank from initially having a 76mm arm and a 12T guide pulley to finally having a 66mm arm and a 10T guide pulley. However I have no idea what the tandem versions were like as I can find no information about them. Perhaps they continued with the bigger guide pulley and longer arm.

Finally, I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that the 1938 Super Champion Grand Sport may just be the first derailleur in history to carry this 'richly storied' (and much overused) name.

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I believe that this is a reasonably clean example of the Super Champion Sport Léger with a mounting for a brazed-on plate. Some of its key features are:

• It has a guide pulley with 10 teeth.
• There is no pusher plate at the guide pulley.
• The main tube, on which the cage slides, is 12mm in diameter.
• The main nut at the p-pivot (through which the toggle chain runs) is aluminium.
• The pulley cage arm is steel and 66mm long.

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• Derailleur brands: Super Champion
• Country: France
• Date of introduction: 1946?
• Date of this example: unknown
• Model no.: unknown
• Weight: 186g excluding spring
• Maximum cog: 28 teeth?
• Total capacity: unknown
• Pulley centre to centre: 66mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 1/8”
• Logic: low normal
• B pivot: none
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: steel, with an aluminium nut where the toggle chain emerges