fascinating Berlina gas tank topic

["Watry, Andrew (LNG-MBC)" <Andrew.Watry@domain.elided>]

Not to bore too many of you who could care less about Berlina gas tanks, but
I gathered some more numbers and did some more poking around.  My US Berlina
2000 parts supplement book must not have all the updates John Hertzman's
book does, because it shows only one tank listed for 2000 with no chassis
change number listed.  My relevant pages are 1974 revisions.

The earliest chassis I list with the big tank is AR*3000698*, built probably
8/72, which could be a 1972 MY or 1973 MY car. Sadly, the car is now cut up
into little tiny pieces and I didn't look at the build plate with this in
mind when I had it.  The latest chassis I know of is, thanks to Kevin Trent
tipping the scales in his direction with five Berlinas, AR*3001896*, built
8/73 and listed as a 1973 MY car.  This kind of accords with the statement
yesterday that the tanks changed around AR*3002000*, which I believe to be
about the start of the 1974 MY cars, though many, especially in California,
got registered as 1973 cars, and boy are they glad now due to smog
regulations.

By way of explanation, I wonder if the reason for going back to the small
tank is the coming of the rubber-bumper cars, the first of which I know of
is AR*3001914*, and which were required for the 1974 MY.  There is a lot
more structure in the trunk and rear panel area of the rubber-bumper cars
than the stainless-bumper cars, and what I can think of is either (1) they
didn't want the further extra weight back there, on top of the added
structure plus big bumpers, with the bigger tank, or (2) the longerons that
run fore and aft on either side of the trunk, tying the rear panel to
wheelwell area, get in the way of the bigger tank somehow? This doesn't
totally make sense to me, but it's all I can think of.  I have examples in
my back yard at the moment of a 73 big-tank car and 74 small-tank
rubber-bumper car, so I'll do some comparing to see if anything would
prevent the big tank physically fitting into the 74 car.

I've asked this before, but have not seen a definitive answer: Did
contemporary GTVs and Spiders have the bigger tank?  Anybody anal enough to
keep track of it? Maybe Alex Gouras, if he's listening?

Andrew Watry
Berlina Register

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