Interesting that this subject came up right now. I just happened upon an article on saddle history in Cycle Sport magazine (US) from October 2003 which discussed the arrival of the Unicanitor. As someone already mentioned, the Plastic saddle with flat alloy rails came out in 1959. The saddles immediately were debuted by the entire French team. As Wayne commented, they were first released with the options of Black, Orange, and Green plastic.
The bare plastic was very slippery initially and it was actually British champ Tom Simpson who was credited with being the first person to glue a layer of leather onto a cover. This became a factory option only much later. However, in spite of the comparative light weight of the saddles, after only a couple years, the saddles were so disliked by many riders that they had reverted back to their beloved leather - Anquetil himself among them. My understanding was that it was not until toward the late 60s that the Cinelli-unicanitors were offered with the various styles of leather-topped and padded saddle options. I myself had bought a course "Buffalo" grained black suede leather topped saddle around 1970.
I can't venture "exactly" when the round railed saddles came about, but the
"Nitor 1963" micro-adjusting seatpost intended for those saddles came out
in... well,... 1963. It was heralded as "a seatpin perfect in every way" or
some such in the 1963 Ron Kitching catalogue. and they were indeed very nice and
easier to adjust than the two-bolt Campy post since they used cap-head (hex
wrench) bolts mounted at the sides - which offered more the accessibility of
a classic seat clip, but with faster saddle attachment via a few quick spins
of an L-shaped wrench. [compare that with wrestling with your Campy two-bolt
post]... Actually, here is a page with photos of my own post - NOS, with
original box - for anyone curious about this long forgotten and short lived
marvel.
http://community-2.webtv.net/
Bob Hanson, Albuquerque, NM, USA
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From: "Bingham, Wayne" <WBINGHAM(AT)imf.org> Subject: _[CR]Plastic Unicanitor_ (http://search.bikelist.org/query.asp?SearchString="Plastic+Unicanitor"&SearchPrefix=@msgsubject&SortBy=MsgDate[a])
Doug Van Cleve wrote:
>>> I am guessing they are all the same shape?<<<
I think they were all basically the same shape, but there a numerous versions of this saddle through the years. Different surface textures, number and placement of holes, colors, etc. They were even quite popular for track bikes and in the BMX scene in the very early 80's, and in a wide variety of colors (even though several colors were also available on the original ones). Does anyone know if these are all really slightly different versions of the same item, or were there any significant changes and/or differences over time?
Wayne Bingham
Lovettsville VA USA