Backpedalling and scraping bottom (was: mirrors)

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

Got to my main trove of parts books this morning - not a complete collection,
but more extensive than the few I keep in the main quarters.


First, a brief note on the parts books. The earliest Giulietta and earlier
parts books were permanently bound hardcovers books; the later Giulietta
(probably coinciding with the 101) and pre-1750 105 parts books were
tall-format looseleaf books with no date-notations on the individual pages.
With the 1750 a new looseleaf "landscape" format was adopted, pages 21 cm high
by 30 cm wide with, in the upper right-hand corner of each page, an
edition/date panel with a section for 'Data ultimo aggiornamento', the date of
last updating. Whenever a part was changed without invalidating the prior
part, as in a model-year variant like the rubber bumpers on the Berlina, a new
page would be printed and inserted with a slash and secondary number to
indicate an internal appendix (e.g. Tavola 142 would have a Tavola 142/2
added). In other cases, particularly when a part was superseded with a new
part which could then replace the old one, a new page would be substituted for
the old one which was then discarded. That is where the date of last updating
comes in. It is a useful system, but the new pages did not necessarily reach
every part book in the fields, nor do the new pages necessarily leave any
indication of what the part was originally. Thus there will be some
indications, but also some ambiguities, about what changed when.


So, on the shallow conical outside mirrors with and without the Alfa logo.
There are three parts numbers which I have been able to find in my incomplete
collection of parts books: 105.03.61.017.00, 105.64.61.017.00, and
105.64.61.017.03. The 105.03 prefix indicates a first use of that type on the
type 105.03 car, which was the Duetto; the 106.64 prefix indicates a first use
of that type on the type 105.64 car, which was the Montreal; and the .03
suffix indicates that it is a later revision of the Montreal's 105.64.61.017
mirror.


My parts books show the no-logo, originally Duetto, mirror on the Duetto, 1750
Spiders (both roundtail and squaretail, and including USA versions), on the
European version of the GT Veloce, and on both European and USA versions of
both the 1750 Berlina and the 2000 Berlina. However, they show the Montreal's
105.64.61.017.00 with logo on the USA version of the 1750 GT Veloce. (I do not
have a parts book, other than the Catalogo Rapido, covering the 2000 coupes
and Spiders.) The 1750 Berlina project car in my local garage has the no-logo
105.03 mirror. Memory (which has failed me in the past more often than I like
to admit) tells me that my bought-new 1750 GT Veloce and 2000 Berlina, both in
storage in another county, had the 106.64 logo mirrors. The 1974 Catalogo
Rapido lists the 105.64 mirror, but with a .03 suffix, for all 105 sedans,
coupes, and Spiders, but that may be, and probably is, a case of supersession
by a later part with no implication of original use. The 105.64 mirror, with
the .03 suffix, is listed in the main parts book for the Nuova Super.


I mentioned that a mirror I ordered sometime in the late seventies from ARI in
Newark came in the logo version but in primer rather than plated. In addition,
all of the European brochures I have for first series Alfettas, both coupe and
sedan, show the logo version, painted rather than plated, as do the photos in
d'Amico & Tabucchi. My USA-versions-only Alfetta parts book does not show the
round conical mirror on any version.


So, lacking further evidence, I assume that the no-logo version came in with
the Duetto and was used on most if not all Spiders until the trapezoidal
mirror replaced it, and probably on most Berlinas and European 1750 coupes,
and that the logo version, plated, was used on the Montreal and on the USA
1750 GT Veloce and possibly on other contemporary coupes/berlinas, and that a
painted version, probably the .03, was a standard fitting for some and a
standard replacement for all from sometime no later than early 1974.


There remains the question of the tapped plate, which Andrew Watry says he
found on some but not all Berlinas, with a recollection that "early cars have
tended not to have them, and later cars have had them". In my parts books none
of the 105.03 mirrors were accompanied by the tapped plates, and all of the
105.64 mirrors were shown with the tapped plates. BUT note that the tapped
plate shown with the 105.64 mirrors bears the number 105.03.61.304.00,
indicating that it was first used on the Duetto. However, neither of the ARI
comprehensive lists of recommended list parts prices which I have from the
period list the plate. The mirror is there, for $5.97, just a tad more than a
tenth of IAP's $59.50 for the reproduction.


Cheers

John H.

Raleigh, N.C.

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