Alfa quality

["Watry, Andrew (LNG-SFR)" <Andrew.Watry@domain.elided>]

While I generally think Alfas are quality cars, especially in the areas that
count, sometimes you can see places where Alfa saved a few lira.

I noticed this yesterday in looking at a 67 GTV dashboard I got.  It is a
beautiful piece, I think, and the stepnose GTV is just about my favorite
Alfa of all.  But do you know what the dashboard is made of? Cardboard.
With some wood grain, stainless, and padded vinyl overlays.  And Giulia
Super dashes are mainly composed of multiple fiberglass pieces stapled
together.  With vinyl and wood veneer overlays held on by clips, screws, and
tabs.  Assembled and place, these are both incredible looking dashboards,
but when you get underneath you can see it's kind of an illusion, and the
structure is pretty slight.  Not that it matters, and I guess I'd rather hit
my head on cardboard in an accident than on the stamped steel of the Giulia
TI dash.

One nice thing about this type of layered construction is that you can
repair these dashes with pretty much normal home-mechanic tools and
processes.  They're not like the later urethane dashes that are tough to
fix. I've successfully rebuilt three Giulia Super dashes after radio thefts
and their resulting destruction. No more in-dash radios for me.

Andrew Watry
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