Heresy or Hot new trend? [was: Alfa Spider Taillight redesign]

["Douglas R. and Julia R. Harris" <dharris@xxxxxxx>]

Gil wrote:

This item may not appeal to all Alfisti, and certainly not the "purists"
but when my series 3 Spider needed repainting recently I replaced the
original black rimmed tailights and air deflector with simple LED type
round taillights, two on each side.  [Address to picture omitted.]

I write:

I guess I'd call myself a pragmatic purist.  Before I looked at Gil's
solution, I thought:  Oh, no.  But the effect is proportionate,
interesting, pleasing to the eye and looks well executed in a Ferrari
meets Opel sort of way.  Gil, your defense against the dogmatic purists
might be to say:  No sheetmetals were harmed during the filming of this
tail panel.  Translation:  What has been done can be undone, and the car
could be returned to original with no lingering indication of the
heretical mischief you've perpetrated.

With the high [read: inflated by eBay] cost of OEM parts, who could
blame Gil for carrying out a creative solution?  I've printed off the
picture and will tack it to a board in my office.  I expect some
what-thuh questions like Gil has gotten.

Keeping 'em on the road and in good order should be the overall goal.
When I bought my spider two years ago, I thought I was committed to a an
ethic of preservation I couldn't afford years ago with my TR6 and RX7.
Since then I've realized the cost of a "spare no effort" mentality and
the value of reasonably accommodating the need to bend without being
destructive.

Doug
77 Spider
Richmond, Virginia

[demime 0.99c.7 removed an attachment of type text/x-vcard which had a name of dharris.vcf]
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