Re: "Unfortunately Alfa or Bertone did not have the manufacturing wherewithal"

[JHertzman@xxxxxxx]

In AD 7-079 Peter Lundquist relayed, through Jack Hagerty, more of the tribal
lore on the relation of cheap-labor intensive artisanal production to
expensive-labor capital-intensive volume production, as exemplified in the
switch from step-nose to smooth-nose on the coupes. "Unfortunately Alfa or
Bertone did not have the manufacturing wherewithal to make the sculpted nose
initially. So they threw labor at the problem until they could get the
tooling." End of quote.

First, let us leave Bertone's manufacturing wherewithal out of this. The
"Bertone" 1600/1750/2000 coupe bodies were built by Alfa. The "Bertone"
ironblock 2000 and 2600 Sprint bodies were probably built by OSI (best info I
have), but almost certainly not by Bertone or by Alfa, just as the "Touring
Superleggera" ironblock 2000 and 2600 Spider bodies were probably (again, best
info I have) built by ILCA, but certainly not by Alfa and almost as certainly
not by Touring. Alfa 'probably' did all of the presswork for the
1600/1750/2000 coupes themselves, but if not they certainly had available the
resources of metalstampers, many of whom (as in GB and Germany, for decades)
had the facilities to do both presswork and full body assembly for small
manufacturers as well as lower-production bodies for large manufacturers, like
Fiat, Volvo, or VW.

Second, look at the actual panels and actual joint lines. The smoothnose
jointline is all gently convex leading at a transition from the convex fender
panels to the progressively tighter radius of the front couple of inches of
the nose, a very simple filling and filing job, where the precise angles at
the ends of the step are, as Chris Brown said in 078, appreciably more
demanding of skilled leadwork.

Third, look at what went before. This throwing labor at the problem ostensibly
occurred in 1963 to solve a lack of the technical wherewithall to do what had
been done on every low-volume series-production body Alfa had ever used, 1900,
1300, 2000, 2600, Spider, Coupe, Berlina, Speciale, Furgone, whatever- except
for the rear-hinged Giulia T.I.. Find any- ANY! analogous technical solution
on any car ever, and you may have a slender base for an argument that there
was some base for this detail in production technology or economy, rather than
visual styling. 

The 'stepnose' may or may not have been a restrained response by Giugiaro to a
management interest in a 'hoodscoop' corresponding to the ones on the Giulia
Spider, 2600 Spider, and 2600 Sprint, as well as innumerable other cars of the
period. I have no argument with people who prefer the design, but (apart from
the possible 'scoop' idea) it was, as far as I know, unique, with neither
precedent nor subsequent development, by Giugiaro, by Alfa, or by anyone else,
and an explanation based in either economy or production technology would be
hard to sustain without being able to show any remotely parallel examples. 

Cordially,

John

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