Return of the Turbo

TURBOMATIC.jpg Let’s say you are one of the most revered Italian saddle makers. Your products have been ubiquitous amongst professional and recreational riders alike. Each of the last 3 decades can almost be defined by a saddle of your design: the Turbo(matic), Flite, and the SLR. You recently made a complete redesign of the Flite while still offering a Flite “Classic”. But the Turbomatic, which has an almost cult-like following, has been out of production for about a decade, so it’s not so easily returned to the market. What should you do: go all-out on nostalgia by simply duplicating the tooling for the original saddle, or do you keep the contours of the original while using your most up-to-date construction techniques?

For Selle Italia, they pride themselves on having a forward-looking attitude. The new Turbomatic’s shape is familiar enough, but the shell and rails bear little resemblance to the 350gr+ boat anchor of old.

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As the sales of “relieved” saddles (with a cutout to reduce pressure on your taint) edge out the solid saddles in this class, Selle Italia is savvy enough to simultaneously introduce a “Gel Flow” version, seen below.

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