In the megabrochure (p14?), Andy Blance tells of Thorn having built bespoke Rohloff frames early on for a few customers whose insistence outmatched his scepticism. Might this have been one of those bikes? He also says that in one case, after he had learned more about the Rohloff from his own experiments, and having put a Rohloff model into production, Thorn gave at least one of those owners a new production frame, which would certainly have had the eccentric and vertical rear dropout.
I know Thorn model names have attached to evolving designs over the years. However I've not previously seen reference to Mercury prior to the first production run Thorn commissioned, which I had understood to be TIG welded in Taiwan like the current version.
Nice looking bike from the images, and possibly a significant piece of Thorn history. Not to be casting doubt - this is just a speculative question - but might it be an early frame with a later hub and adapted fork?
