At 5:03 AM +0000 8/31/03, alfa-digest wrote:
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 21:57:11 -0400 (EDT)That's an interesting point. Can anyone shed some light on this? I know USA-spec Volvos had amber turn signals in the '70s when the Alfetta was designed with amber in Europe and red in the USA. I was fairly certain that Alfa felt the red looked better, but European laws required amber. But something made them stop doing this when they designed the taillights for the GTV-6 and the first few years of the Milano, reverting to red on USA models for later Milanos and the 164. The 164 I'm pretty sure about--Pininfarina's design called for very little taillignt area, so American style turn signals were used on USA cars to meet area requirements. I know boattail Spiders had red turn signals in the USA and amber in Europe--what about later Spiders--they were red in the USA, weren't they? GTV's? I know they were amber in Europe. What about other makes? I know Volvos had amber in the early '70s, I think the Fiat X1/9 did, too. But the Fiat 850 had red, right?
From: Richard Welty <[email protected]>
Subject: Re[2]: [alfa] Mods to sell in USA : Was - 164 Euro Tail Lights
On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 17:14:54 -0700 (PDT) James Montebello <[email protected]> wrote:
On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Joe Elliott wrote:> > In any case, there was never a law in the USA requiring 'American> style' turn signals. I'm pretty sure just from anecdotal evidence that red tail lenses were required for both brake and turn signals at least into the late 70s.>
It wasn't something that just happened, either. We might still be stuck with sealed beams today if it weren't for Ford's lobbying efforts. Why they didn't legalize modern beam patterns at the same time is still a mystery.> The DOT was often funny that way. When sealed beam headlights weremandated in 1968, only round 7" sealed-beam headlights were allowed at first, then a bit later the rectangular sealed beam units. The often quite attractive light assemblies used in Europe were always replaced with usually much less attractive assemblies with the US mandated units.because the DOT required sealed beam and the Europeans don't make sealed beam units. the original logic was that early non-sealed headlights tended develop rusty, ineffective reflectors over time. the Europeans dealt with this with the rubber caps over the rear of the units.This state of affairs persisted until the US manufacturers started homologating other headlight shapes (if memory serves, this was roughly around the time of the first Taurus, so early to mid 80s).the reason is that the DOT approved the 900x halogen bulbs with the rubber o-rings around the base.
And the lenses are horrible, offering little improvement over '60s-era sealed beams.Within a few years, all cars, US and foreign, had drastically different headlights. The European cars usually just using the same assemblies they'd been using in Europe for some time.no. the european assemblies in us model cars may look like the traditional euro lights, but they take 900x bulbs, not H bulbs.
richard
- --
Richard Welty [email protected]
Averill Park Networking 518-573-7592
Java, PHP, PostgreSQL, Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security
Joe Elliott '82 GTV-6 -- to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]