Frank Berto was a courteous, even rather decorous, author from the pre-internet, pre-shock-jock era. But, writing in The Dancing Chain he pulls few punches:

'Campagnolo expanded their focus to include touring derailleurs. At the 1970 Paris show, they introduced the Gran Turismo touring rear derailleur. The Gran Turismo had bad cage geometry and it shifted terribly, but it was so strong that when the chain jammed, it bent the bike rather than the derailleur. It was arguably the worst rear derailleur to carry Campagnolo's logo. In 1975, I wrote the truth about it. The Gran Turismo was my litmus test for bicycle writers. If a writer praised it, it meant that either he had never used it or he was lying, and the rest of his opinions were suspect.

Well... I am pleased to confirm that I am going to pass Frank's litmus test. In the mid-1970s I was unlucky enough to be involved with riding and equipping a tandem. Speculating that a tandem would place relatively high demands on a rear derailleur, we fitted 'the very best' - an almost unbelievably expensive Campagnolo Rally. This was supposed to be exceptionally strong and provide an equally exceptional quality of gear change. After a very few hundreds of miles of decidedly average gear changes, the b-pivot on this jewel of Italian craftmanship snapped cleanly in two. The local dealer then advised us that we were clearly torture testing the derailleur to an unheard-of extent and that therefore we should fit an almost unbelievably heavy, merely very expensive, solid steel Campagnolo Gran Sport. He was certainly correct that this magnificent object was unbreakable. But unfortunately he neglected to tell us that it only changed to an approximation of the gear you had selected and only did so when it could be bothered - which was not often. After a few hundred miles of wrestling with this petulant piece of garbage, we ripped it off. In frustration, we fitted a very, very cheap, and very, very despised, SunTour V GT. Many thousands of miles later this was still shifting quickly and precisely, just as it did on the first day it was fitted.

If I was to be courteous, or even rather decorous, I would say that touring derailleurs were never Tullio Campagnolo's thing.

There were four versions of the benighted Campagnolo Gran Turismo:

• The derailleur could be fitted with a gear hanger or, alternatively, could be designed to fit to a brazed-on hanger. Both examples of the Gran Turismo were inexplicably weird. The gear hanger plate was a unique and idiosyncratic design. The bolt that fitted the hanger plate was not compatible with a braze-on hanger. The braze-on version also did not thread into the standard (Campagnolo) dropout, but instead used a sleeved nut. All of this uniqueness was, as proved by SunTour V GT discussed above, completely unnecessary. Madness.
• Earlier versions did not have a cable adjuster. Later versions had a cable adjuster. It is possible that this adjuster was added at the request of Schwinn. Schwinn were probably the only bicycle manufacturer to buy the Gran Turismo in any quantity. God help them.

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This particular, near perfect, example is a later version, possibly from about 1970. Some of its attributes are:

• It has the unique Gran Turismo hanger plate.
• It has a cable adjuster.

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• Derailleur brands: Campagnolo
• Categories: Campagnolo - touring with terror
• Country: Italy
• Date of introduction: 1970?
• Date of this example: unknown
• Model no.: 2270?
• Weight: a terrifying 435g including hanger plate
• Maximum cog: 34 teeth (Sutherland’s 3rd edition)
• Total capacity: 36 teeth (Sutherland’s 3rd edition)
• Pulley centre to centre: 81.5mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: sprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: steel in quantities that you can barely imagine

Ref. 1853