Dates

[Bill_Magoffin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

John H says:

"We in the United States have for many years had a plastic plate
pop-riveted to the driver's door post which included the build-date." and
speculates on the importance of dates in other parts of the world.

In Australia, being a low volume country deep in the antepodes, shipments
of Alfa's did not occur every day. This added to the couple of months or so
it took for the shipment to physically get here meant that there was often
a considerable delay between time of build and when the vehicle was ready
for sale. Vehicle could then be in stock for a few months before a buyer
came along.

Australian vehicles are generally fitted with a similar pop riveted build
date, on my GTV 6 it is on the inner fender lip on the passenger side. On
my former 75 TS it was on the top of the radiator support panel. It
indictes the month and year and according to the owners handbook is the
month when the body and driveline were united at the factory.

A particular legislative requrement in Australia is the fitment of a
"compliance plate" which is also a pop rivited plate which indicates that
the vehicle complies with local design laws. This plate also has a date,
known as the "compliance date". Alfa had a habit of fitting this plate to
cars from stock at the last possible moment..this may have had the affect
of them delaying some tax payment or making it appear to the owner that the
car was not from "old stock".

In any case, these dates were often many months apart. My GTV6 was built in
December 1985 and complied in June 1986. My former 75 was built in May 1990
and complied in May 1991.

Most owners (particularly at time of sale) will refer to the date on the
compliance plate as the date of the car rather than the build date. This is
because the compliance plate is usually larger and in a more obvious
location, every vehicle has one and the owner may not even know of a build
date plate. This leaves aside the fact the compliance date is assured to be
later than the build date and will make the car appear younger.

Outside of the folks who can be relied on to "know", when a date is
mentioned by an owner it is normally the compliance date, not the build
date.

Regds

Bill

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