Giulia instrumentation

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-1351 Mat Killick writes that, contrary to my description of the 
instrument cluster of the Giulia TI, "By 1969 the Giulia TI had acquired a 
pair of large round instruments. Tacho is set on the left with temperature 
gauge inset, speedo on the right with oil pressure inset, and a small fuel 
gauge sits between them.  This assembly sits in a plastic panel under a 
single hood.  It is all white on black, with no brightwork.  Presumably, the 
layout is derived from the Super, don't know, never driven one."

The discrepancy is between Alfa's model designations for the many variants 
built on the Giulia hull, and the reasonable casual extensions of those 
designations by owners who don't give a whit for nitpicking differences. 
According to Alfa, by 1969 there was no Giulia TI; the production of the TI, 
which had peaked at over 27,000 units a year in 1963, ended with the 903 cars 
built in 1967. Concurrently with the end of Giulia TI production two new 
models were introduced, the Giulia 1300 Berlina and the Giulia 1300 TI (which 
is not the same thing as a Giulia TI). In 1968 a Giulia 1600 S was added 
(distinct from the Giulia Super) which might well have been considered 
essentially a Giulia TI, since it had many of the base-model characteristics 
(single carburettor, rubber floor mats) and had the instrumentation Mat 
describes, but it was not, as far as Alfa was concerned, a TI.

The various Giulia saloon models were:
105.14   Giulia T.I.  (cambio sotto il volante)
105.08   Giulia T.I.  (cambio a leva centrale) 
105.09   Giulia T.I  (rhd)
105.16   Giulia T.I. Super
105.06   Giulia 1300
105.26   Giulia Super
105.26   Giulia Super 1.6 (from 1972) 
105.26S  Nuova Giulia Super 1.6 (from 1974)
105.28   Giulia Super 1.6 e Nuova Giulia Super 1.6 (rhd)
105.39   Giulia 1300 T.I.
105.40   Giulia 1300 T.I. (rhd)
105.85   Giulia 1600 S
105.87   Giulia 1600 S (rhd)
115.09   Giulia 1300 Super
115.09   Giulia Super 1.3 (from 1972)
115.09S  Nuova Giulia Super 1.3 (from 1974)
115.10   Giulia Super 1.3 e Nuova Giulia Super 1.3 (rhd)
115.40   Giulia Diesel

Mat also writes "WRT the radial numbering, I'm not sure that it is an issue.  
For me, the strength of analogue instruments (and the failure of digital 
instrument unless they are designed to mimic analogue display) is that the 
relevant information, including rates of change, can be registered at a 
glance, without having to be read.  I certainly don't have problems reading 
my watch (time or elapsed time) in the gloom of 25m below MSL, even though it 
has no numbers, just big green blobs on an uncluttered black face."

Agreed, up to a point. My wife's watch doesn't even have big green blobs- 
just one dot at twelve o'clock, and she doesn't really need that. A 
department chairman at a school I taught at had a watch with no face at all- 
one read the hands positions against a background of escapement, spring, 
gears and frame of the watchworks, and he had no trouble telling when to go 
to lunch. Some of my colleagues spoofed him by rigging duplicates that went a 
step further: they removed the hands, completing the transformation of clocks 
into mechanical jewelry. None of them starved. I don't really need numbers on 
a speedometer to tell if I am going fast, or on a tachometer to tell when I 
have hit the rev limiter. But I am enough of an orthodox old fart to want 
numbers, (if there are to be any) to be upright and legible, and to think 
that numbers on their side, or upside down (particularly Roman numerals) are 
a decorative affectation.

Cheers,

John H

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End of alfa-digest V7 #1352
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