Originally Posted by
noglider
No, Huret was Simplex's competition. The Simplexes shifted well but didn't last. The Hurets lasted forever but shifted terribly. Then in the mid 70's or so, Huret made some really fine derailleurs. The crappy ones were on the Schwinn Varsity. It took a tremendous amount of hand strength to shift them, because the return spring was so heavy.
I thought Huret bought out Simplex in the late 70's or early 80's, but I couldn't find this on the internet so I guess I was wrong.
I had a Simplex long time ago and it shifted poorly and didn't last long and it was a mid to upper, but not top end model. I replaced it with a Huret Jubilee (the one with all the drillings) and that thing worked great, except for constantly going out of adjustment. Yeah, the Schwinn Hurets were the cheapest of the cheapest and those were crap; but my mother-in-law still has a Varsity sitting in the garage covered with dust with one of those derailleurs, and the dang thing worked when I monkeyed with it about 10 years ago! Go figure.