Model variations/ TS Xmas tree

[Bill_Magoffin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

John H (the one stateside) passed on the good oil on factory model variations
(being no accident). Judging from the various discussions over the years on the
digest it appears that most variances were due to legislative requirements with
the US being most affected. The Euro cars and those destined for the rest of the
world (R.O.W.)seem more alike. Of the other variations, most seem to be related
to differences between RHD and LHD cars.

I speculate that because the build frequency and volume of Euro/R.O.W. LHD cars
was higher than Euro/R.O.W. cars that the runs of RHD cars may have been the
target for parts out of the "being phased out" bin. An added attraction would be
the smaller job lots assigned to each country which would make it easier to have
all the cars for a particular market different to "normal" but still alike. Then
of course we have the CKD kits shipped off the South Africa etc.

There seem to be a number of features of cars over the years that "hung on" in
the RHD cars that were long gone in the LHD models. The recently mentioned
"classic" cylinder air cleaner in 2.0 116 cars being a recently mentioned
example. There have of course been reasons over the years why RHD cars were left
unchanged...engineering difficulty adapting top pivoting pedals to RHD in the
105 cars being one example quoted in the past.

Regds

Bill

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