DISRAELI GEARS
At the end of the 1950s Campagnolo's patents on the parallelogram derailleur had run out, and a slew of more affordable competitors emerged from Simplex, Huret, Gian Robert, the Cyclo Gear Company, Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. Campagnolo's response was to spend the early 1960s producing a, slightly random, sequence of 'inexpensive' derailleurs designed to sit below the Campagnolo Gran Sport.
The Campagnolo Turismo was one of this sequence. In one way this derailleur did express a small but symbolically important nod to the idea of genuine cycle touring. The pulley cage was 3mm longer than a Campagnolo Gran Sport and the pulley cage was allowed to rotate further, allowing a greater length of chain to be taken up. I have been told that, unlike the Campagnolo Gran Sport, it is comfortable with a 28 tooth sprocket - which I can believe.
In another way the Campagnolo Turismo was just a cheaper version of a Campagnolo Gran Sport, with Cadmium plating and a pressed steel pulley cage. It's arguable that Tullio Campagnolo viewed the idea of 'Turismo' as simply being a less athletic, less interesting, less attractive and less expensive version of the one-true-religion-of-cycle-racing. In contrast to the Campagnolo Gran Sport, the Campagnolo Turismo is a truly horrible object, outdated on the day it was released, discoloured after its first winter and clearly unloved. Exactly the kind of derailleur I most like to include in my collection.
