Re: Fusi reliability

["Robert Cess" <rcess@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In AD7-428 Carson Damm states "Don't use Fusi to reference when your car was
built", followed in AD7-429 with an excellent rebuttal by John Hertzman.  Anyone
who has ever published (in my case roughly 200 papers in scientific journals)
knows very well that "bloopers" do happen; if this were not the case, such
journals sections entitled "Erratum".  Indeed, my two volumes of d'Amico &
Tabucchi include an eight page "Errata Corrige."

One of my cherished Alfa Romeo possesions is a framed photograph of a group of
people standing in the foyer of the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese.  This group
includes myself, John Hertzman, Fred Di Matteo and Luigi Fusi.  This occured
during a trip to Arese arranged by Fred in 1991, and the highlight of the trip
was a group lunch followed, with the aid of a translator, by Fusi describing his
career at Alfa Romeo, which began as a 14-year old apprentice draftman.  Thus
obviously Fusi did not have an extensive formal education.  But as John H. so
nicely, and in my opinion accurately, puts it, "Fusi's work is a monumental
piece of scholarship, by an aging draftsman who was not trained as an archival
scholar."  This is high praise coming from one with the credentials of Dr.
Hertzman (Ph.D. in art history as I recall), who is indeed  an archival scholar.

To put all  this in perspective, recently I received an e-mail from a gentleman
who had just purchased a car that was titled as a "1963 Alfa Romeo Giulietta
Sprint 10103 ", Chassis No. 370208, and he was curious as to what he had
purchased.   I was pretty sure it was not a 1963 Giulietta Spider, since 1962
was the last year for the Giulietta Spider, confirmed by pp. 840-841 of Fusi.
But according to Fusi the last Giulietta Chassis No. was 173086.  A check of
d'Amico & Tabucchi indicates differences with Fusi that are probably caused by
model year versus callender differences in the two reference sources, as
discussed by John in an earlier posting, plus a quantum jump in chassis numbers
not contained in Fusi.

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