Re: GTAP doors

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

In ad9-101 Modelle writes "In my wanderings through a local warehouse, I spied
what seemed to be two matching doors from a GTAP. They had the light-weight
door handles and the plexi side windows with the aluminum inner frames. My
heart began to beat fast when I saw them lying there...I can't image what the
reaction would have been if I'd seen the whole car. What ever happened to
these plastic GTA's?"

The short answer is nothing ever happened to them. They first appeared on the
Alfa-digest in 1995 (ad1-218 through ad1-234) in discussion between Patrick
Italiano, Ken Geiger, Pat Braden, and Jim Hayes; Patrick Italiano raised the
question because no such car was mentioned in any authoritative publication on
the GTA. Pat Braden, who had previously mentioned them, replied that he had
heard about them years previously from Paul Tenney who had forwarded to him an
article from a plastics-industry trade publication. Pat mentioned that "One of
the old issues of the Alfa owner contains a note from Paul about those cars
and references the article." (I was unable to find such a note in my full run
of "Alfa Owner".) Pat went on to say "I seem to recall that three true GTAp
cars were made (but I may be confusing that number with the sovralimentazione
GTAm cars)" For the record, there were ten, not three, of the GTA-SA
(Sovralimentato) cars, and they had nothing to do with the GTAm cars which
were built three years later (1970-71 versus 1967-68 for the GTA-SA).

Jim Hayes mentioned that there were several plastic panels homologated as
factory options for the steel-bodied GTAm cars. There have also been plastic
hoods, deck-lids, GTAm-style fenders, and who knows what else fabricated and
sold on the USA aftermarket. There is (or was) also an individual in England
who completely reskinned GT Veloces, bumper to bumper, with fiberglass, even
offering to do it on your premises in the USA, for remarkably reasonable
prices. There is nothing to prevent fiberglass replication of any body or part
thereof if you have access to an original to use as a plug, and somebody may
have done so here with a GTA or GTV, but I wouldn't expect to run a homebuilt
GTAp among vintage racers or production cars under any likely set of rules.

My guess, fwiw, is that Pat Braden was conflating GTA history with GTZ
history; some TZs were built with fiberglass bodies, but pending more
compelling evidence I will doubt that any GTA was.

John H.
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