115.01 GT Veloce VINs and model years

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

Tony Sims raises fair questions about his GT Veloce, which has a VIN number
between the high number d'Amico & Tabucchi list for 1974 cars and the low
number they list for 1975 cars.

His last speculation, "it could just be the result of marginal bookkeeping by
Alfa, too" should be extended to "it could just be the result of marginal
scholarship by d'Amico & Tabucchi", either an error in transcription from
Alfa's records or in proofreading the galleys.

As he says, the 10548 cams could easily have been added later, but myriad
other details that go with a US-spec car (whether delivered in Europe or here,
or as he suggests through Mexico or Canada) would be difficult to change. The
bare numbers would seem insurmountable; the non-US 2000 GT Veloces were 105s
(105.21 LHD, 105.22 RHD) with serial numbers starting with 24 (2420001 to
2446580) while the US-spec cars were 115.01s with serial numbers starting with
30 (3020001 to 3027089).

He also mentions "It does have the small round side marker lights, but those
could have been added later." I haven't seen any evidence that the small
rounds were ever used on the US-spec 2000, but both the familiar rectangular
Altissimo side marker and a small round Carello side marker were used on the
US-spec 1750, and either in production or later his small round markers could
be the US variant rather than a Eurospec part. (The US small rounds are not
identical to the European rounds.)

Subsequent to my digging data for John Burrows' problem I found another ARI
list of USA "Production Models" which stretches the term "Production Model"
thin enough to include both the 1980 and 1981 editions of the US-spec Alfa
Sei, of which it is said that a total of three cars were built for the two
years. It does not list 1975 GTVs or 115 Berlinas, and all of the 1975 cars
which it lists are 49 state versions, while all of the 1974 cars are
fifty-state versions. It does seem like a safe assumption that any 115 GT
Veloces built in 1975 would have been sold as 1974 models.

John H.
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