Re: Random - -

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

In AD8-0050 Tom Callahan responds to my earlier post on quality control at
Alfa. At first reading it seems that he may have been irritated at my running
roughshod over a brief comment which he had made rather casually. I want to
apologize for any offence I may have given.

His bottom line, "We are in apparent agreement," came as a relief. Yes, I
think (and hope) that we are.

His penultimate paragraph, "The point to all of this (and there really is one)
is that there were circumstances where Alfa, or one of its agents, was relaxed
about where or what parts changes were introduced and that one should trust
the official factory publications the most (but not indiscriminately) when
working on Alfas", is very much to the point. The Pininfarina-built Spiders,
particularly the early ones, are notorious for apparent production
irregularities. Distributors, ARI in particular, also produced variants by
using aftermarket suppliers, resulting in equipment and features which don't
show up in parts books or service documents. Dealers did the same; when I
bought my Berlina in 1972 the dealer had a second new Berlina with a padded
vinyl top (black top on a white car) which won't show up in color charts or
other documents.

My point had been, and is, that some of the casual remarks sometimes made
about Alfas can be taken as a slur on the company and/or on Italians
generally. Tom's "since build quality has been the frequent topic of posts,
rehashing it once again was unnecessary" is reasonable for frequent readers,
but for newbies or transients a casual remark about quality control that was
ill-defined or non-existent could leave the impression that quality control
was ill-defined or non-existent. Even if the idea is charming to some of us,
it distorts.

One further comment, however, on a tangent. Tom wrote "we have had owners of
750/101 cars which were close on the production line advise parts
configurations were one way on a first car, different but similar on the
second, and back to the first configuration for the third in a series.
Identifying the exact model of 750/101 one has is sometimes no better than an
educated guess. Records were not well kept and model changes were not limited
to calendar year cycles during this time." All certainly true, with a possible
exception to the "close on the production line" part. This may be taken as
evidence of "ill-defined or non-existent" production control, but serial
numbers were not always used in strict sequence. The lists of serial numbers
published in d'Amico & Tabucchi often include the word "tranne", except - ;
certain blocks of numbers were produced in this year, 'except' for certain
listed numbers which were built in the following or preceding year. (Which is
at least part of the reason why it takes two pages to list the Giulietta
Spider chassis numbers). E.G. 05642, 05647, 05651, 05658 and 05669 were built
in 1958, but 05640, 05641, 05643 (etc) were built in 1959. It is a safe bet
that there were twelve times as many which were built out of month-sequence as
out of year-sequence. There are many possible good, non-haphazard reasons why
this might occur, but to the owners of cars 5641, 5642, and 5643 it would not
necessarily be clear that the different wing-windows or upholstery piping or
carpet-cut on their three cars was not just the result of random picking of
whatever was handy in the parts-bin.

John H.

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