Grand Tour

Grand Tour, designed by Ted Zale and released by Bally Manufacturing Corporation in June 1964, is a single-player electro-mechanical game with a world-travel theme, produced in a confirmed run of 1,310 units. Its add-a-ball counterpart was released the same year as Bally's 'Happy Tour'.

The playfield features two flippers, three pop bumpers, four of Bally's distinctive mushroom bumpers, and two slingshots. Two 'butterfly rollovers' — Bally's term for the switches in the large horseshoe lane surrounding the pop bumpers — and a right outlane ball return gate round out the layout. Lighting the cities in the backglass awards replays, and as a carry-over feature, progress persists from game to game, giving players a reason to keep feeding coins. The game could be set for 3- or 5-ball play, with a maximum displayed score of 1,999 points and classic EM sound from a single bell and a knocker.

With Zale's inventive layout touches and its evocative world-places theme, Grand Tour is an appealing snapshot of mid-1960s Bally design, from an era when a lit backglass city was all the spectacle a pinball machine needed.