Alfa Romeo/Alfa Romeo Digest Archive

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

74 GTV's bumper exemption



It has come up before about the 1974 GTV not having impact bumpers, but I
don't recall if a specific explanation was every given. I was reading a 1974
Car and Driver magazine this weekend, and in a road test of a Mazda coupe it
mentioned the "exemption from federal pendelum tests available to pillarless
coupes for 1974 only."  I guess you could debate whether that thin piece of
stainless on a GTV counts as a pillar or not, but I'd guess Alfa convinced
the feds it wasn't. So is this the exemption that saved the GTV from impact
bumpers?  Has this been revealed before? If so, I apologize for dragging it
back up.

Now what saved the Spider?  I know 1974 Spiders have rubber blocks or
whatever under the bumpers, unlike earlier Spides, but I can't believe
they'd have passed the pendelum test either.  Look at what was required in
1975. The stainless 1974 bumpers would not rebound to their original shape
after the pendelum hit no matter what happened underneath.

Andrew Watry

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]


Home | Archive | Main Index | Thread Index