Alfa in USA, Spider seats in truck, Sud in USA, directional cancellation

[Joe Elliott <jelliott@domain.elided>]

>The real problem was that they did not sell enough cars to make it
>worthwhile to stay in N.America.  Lets face it, as good as the 164 was, it
>was not enough to keep a distributorship going.  I think in the last years
>they only sold 10,000 to 15,000 vehicles per year (maybe less) and their
>target was over 100,000.
I remember reading that Alfa sold 64 cars (164's) in 1995 (although that
might have been a figure from halfway through the year) and that they only
would have had to sell 900 to turn a profit.

>I once talked to an upolstery / seat  guy about buying aftermarket seats
>for the truck , and he felt that only certain seats were crash tested for
>certain vehicles . Bull or good advise ? At least the Spider seats have
>head rests. I've been interested in doing this ever since I saw  a guy
>get rear ended , and bounce his head off the rear window
First of all, in the USA at least, there is no rear-impact test, so I'm not
sure how seats would come into play in crash tests, except maybe in terms
of seatbelt compatibility, so I'd be inclined to dismiss your upholsterer's
comments as Bull.  But if you want adequate rear-end protection, BUY A CAR
WITH A REAR CRUMPLE ZONE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!  Pardon me, but I find it
humorous that anyone would even think about associating "safety" and "83
Chevy truck."  Just one kid's opinion.

>John Tipler's new book, Alfa Romeo Sporting Saloons (which has a good number
>of errors and mis-captioned pix, etc., in it) devotes a lot of space to
>Alfasuds, which we in the US never got to buy.  Are there any Suds in the
>US, either legally or otherwise?  Do they ever come up for sale?
I believe that there are two Suds (for sale?) on Tom Zat's Alfa Heaven web
page.  One's a Sprint coupe (GTV6 lookalike).  I assume that they are
US-legal, but I happen to know of another Sud, in my neck of the woods,
that has a proper USA title and may be for sale, I need to get back to the
owner.  Apparently, with those 6-month or whatever diplomatic deals, if the
diplomat sells his car to you the authorities "don't notice" and you end up
with a non-US-legal car and a USA title for it.  At least that's how the
afformentioned Alfasud owner got the afformentioned Alfasud and his '85
Guilia sedan.  (Rather, that's how the PO's got them, the current owner
didn't do that and so couldn't give me any further details--he just bought
the cars, USA title included.)

Hey gang, get this:  Starting Friday, the turn signal cancellation on my
GTV6 has started working intermittently!!  It happened first in the school
parking lot but not again all Friday, but by the time that I got home
today, it was working at least 50% of the time.  I figure if I say "Good
car" and give it a treat every time it does it it will eventually work
100%.  Then the fuel injection will sort itself out, and the synchros in
the transmission will get better and better as I drive the car.  Maybe I
should put the belt back on the AC and see if that works now. (Actually, I
never tried the AC in the first place, just taking PO's word for it.)

Party on,
Joe Elliott (Green Beer Day in Oxford, Ohio tomorrow)
'82 GTV6 <--resting up for trip to mechanic's Monday (Dad leaves for UK
tomorrow and I'll be driving '87 Jag to save the new tires on the
misaligned Alfa.)

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