Jerry - I'm sure you meant your remark that Brooks "stole" the Ti rail idea from Ideale lightheartedly, but there are other hypotheses that fit:
1) Ignorance. Two decades did pass, Brooks was sold, and I have no idea whether anyone there, management or line worker, ever heard about the Ideale product.
2) Commercial space. Given that Ideale seems to have disappeared, why clutter an ad with homage to a past competitor?
3) Vacant niche. The saddle concept is simple: marry a high-tech carriage to a traditional cover, and they will purchase it for novelty, weight, or sex appeal. To evolutionary ecologists, Ti+leather=vacant niche, and something's gonna try to make a living there.
But, I agree on the fundamental point: that's part of the fun of this list. I've owned the aluminum rail Ideale saddles, but had never heard of the Ti version. Great fun, eh?
harvey sachs mcLean va usa. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jerry Moos wrote: That's the beauty of this list. Until this thread I didn't know a Ti railed leather Ideale ever existed, although I'd seen a Ti rail 2000 series plastic Ideale on eBay. This gets my vote as the coolest saddle ever, and unless someone comes up with a Ti Brooks older than the Swift, this has to predate the Brooks Ti saddles by more than two decades. And they had in 1977 or ealier the same design Brooks use now - that is a leather saddle on which one takes the established design for the steel frame and simply produces it in titanium. This kind of puts the Brooks Ti saddles in a different light. Rather than some great innovation, Brooks simply stole a 20+ year old Ideale design. Of course I still like the Brooks Ti saddles, except I've managed to accumulate several of them without ever paying the recent absurb retail prices. I guess you could say at least Brooks cared enough to only steal the very best.