mix-and-match car assembly

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

James Montebello writes "For many small volume manufacturers, the line between
model years is often blurred.  Parts left over from the previous run are often
used on later runs, so you get mix-and-match cars built near a model year
switch. From reading, this certainly appeared to be true for Alfa in the 50s
and early 60s.  I can't say if it was still true by the 70s, but I'd not be at
all surprised if it were."

One has certainly heard stories from Giulietta days which support the idea
that there was some degree of ad-hoc expediency in car-building in the smaller
shops and in situations in which parts supply was contracted-out and might be
more unreliable. In the early fifties Farina, Bertone and Touring were small
artisan shops subcontracting parts of the work to other artisan shops, but by
the early sixties Touring had folded, Bertone and Pininfarina were both
established industrial factories, and by the mid-sixties Alfa had moved from
old Portello to a comprehensively modern factory at Arese and taken the coupe
production back from Bertone. These were huge changes in the methods of work
and in the degree of organization from the early fifties to the sixties to the
seventies.

The early Giulietta parts book reflects (quite explicitly) running changes
effected at specific points in the serial number sequence, which do not look
to me at all like mix-and-match using-up of parts left over from the previous
run. E.g. there are different part-numbers for the Spider rear fenders up to
car 149500100 and those after; this was in early 1956, with the 84th Spider
built. The luggage lid assembly changed at 149500487, still well below the
middle of the 1956 production. Looking at a couple of early '56 Spiders, the
astute observer will see slightly different way of handling some detail of the
construction of the trunk lid, but if he leaps to the conclusion that it was
haphazard I would think he is being a tad presumptuous. A few hundred cars
earlier, but at an explicit car, the window crank handle changed; a few
hundred cars later, but again at an explicit recorded serial number, the end
sections of the rear bumper changed. And so-on; myriad changes, all
intentional, all a matter of record.

This is equally true, perhaps more so, coming in from the other end of the
book with the mechanical parts produced at Portello; at the 780th engine built
a particular 8 x 1.25 mm flat-head machine screw was reduced from 36 mm to 31
mm length. If one saw two 1955 engines (which had never been disassembled) one
might conclude that one was seeing evidence of haphazard assembly with
whatever was handy that looked long enough, but in the parts book it looks as
though somebody probably had a reason for a change.

In later production, certainly at Arese, collective changes were made en mass
at particular breaks in serial number sequences. Each part book ends with a
numerical index of all the parts used on cars covered by that book, with the
page or pages on which that part was used. Given the full stack of parts
books, and given the part-number of any washer or cotter-pin or other part,
one can find exactly where and when and on what cars that part was used,
insofar as the intent of the designers and engineers was followed. I won't
argue that there couldn't have been deviations, substitutions, quality-control
problems, but I will continue to believe that there was a lot less haphazard
using-up of leftover odd-lots of parts than it may sometimes appear.

Cordially,

John H.
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