Post a pic of your alfa! - Page 23

gxg95 · #**331** (**permalink**) 12-05-2005, 12:24 PM

Happy to. Here are a few more:

rmatteo · #**332** (**permalink**) 12-05-2005, 02:52 PM

Wow...That is a great looking car. Love the interior too. I see the Pennsylvania tags, are you located near Philly?

gxg95 · #**333** (**permalink**) 12-05-2005, 03:38 PM

rmatteo: No, I'm north of Pittsburgh. I moved down here from CT last year. Not much Alfa activity out here that I can find - last year I took the spider to the biggest car show I could find (the Vintage Grand Prix in Pittsburgh) and there was only one other Alfa in attendance. The nearest local club is in Ohio, I thihk.

Touringspider · #**334** (**permalink**) 12-05-2005, 10:20 PM

George:

Your 102 is fabulous. I hope mine comes out that nice. Oh, and thanks again for the trim clips. I got the box right before going on vacation and haven't had the chance play with them (my car is currently at the local Alfa guru having the rebuilt suspension installed).

Is your interior leather or high quality vinyl? It really looks nicely fitted. I know that Stu Schaller says they should be vinyl, but I just saw an old Hoffman price list that lists leather as an option.

Did your car come with bumper guards? I notice that it is a US version with the closer set hood scoops and half upper row of side trim. These often had the bumper guards as an option.

Interest in the 102 cars seems to really be growing (along with the prices

), and it is nice to see really fine examples like yours out there.

Arno Leskinen
AROC-USA National Concours Chair
102 (undergoing restoration)
115 (original owner)
116 (fully restored against all logic)

gxg95 · #**335** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 06:33 AM

Hi Arno.

Thanks for the compliment. I hope those clips work out for you.

I had the interior done in leather. I know that by the book the interior should have been black (and probably vinyl) but I just really didn't want a black interior. I had the leather work done by a shop in CT that also did the Stayfast top and the carpeting. He did a really fine job on the door panels (see photo below). When I got the car originally, the doors and boot were leather, but the seats had been reupholstered with vinyl. The original color of the body was the turquoise, and the interior had faded to a reddish-orange. Brutal.

I do have the bumper guards, all rechromed and ready to install, but I am missing one rubber face. I have not been able to find a replacement, so I guess I need to make a mold and try to cast up a new one. It's on the list.

George

Touringspider · #**336** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 08:59 AM

George:

Your door panels are excellent. Many 102 cars that I have seen are let down by sagging map pockets. I also plan to do a leather interior (funds permitting) and it will be a tobacco color. The paint on my car is grigio graffite, and I have seen this combination on other Italian cars of the period and it is stunning (at least to my eye anyway, others may strongly disagree

). It may not be necessarily "correct", but I follow the philosophy that you have to like your own car first. The National Concours Manual that I wrote would of course penalize the car slightly for "non-correctness", but the deduction is small for things like non-standard colors.

Arno

gxg95 · #**337** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 05:21 PM

Msiert: I am not using any photoprocessing software. I have a Sony DSC-P32 (which has 3.2 Mpix). I think I took these at 2 Mpix. All I did to post them is load them into Paint (the lame image processor that comes with windows) and resize the JPEG by to about 30-40% of the original size using the stretch/shrink function. I didn't do anything else but reduce the size.

df78alfa · #**338** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 05:50 PM

Hi. That 59 sure is a beautiful car. Could one of you please comment on the car of Finlandese. Am I seeing correctly that there is no front bumper. I have always wanted to remove my ugly black bumper in the front and put in the older style grill in the front but was afraid to. I think it looks cool without the bumper and since I'm not able to do the conversion, that would be the next best thing. Your advice is greatly appreciated.

Miah · #**339** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 07:25 PM

About five years ago I took the ugly rubber bumpers from my 78 spider off front and back and bought 78 euro spec stainless bumpers and grill from eb spares in Britain. I was taking a huge leap of faith and was very nervous about cutting up my car. No one I knew had ever tried anything like this so I just decided to go for it. I hated those baby buggy rubber bumpers so much! So I went to a friends welding shop and had the front bumper mounts cut off and welded up a mounting bar that came with the new bumpers into place on the frame. They also welded two little spikes on the back where the original bumpers were designed to be mounted. It only took about 3 and half hours and looked absolutely stunning, actually better than any spider I've ever seen before or since because they were brand new and you could adjust how you mounted them so I snubbed the back bumper in real close and played around with the front to get it just right. I was so glad I did it. Then an suv ran a stop sign a month later and crushed the car. So I got a big payment bought another 78 spider and did it again! Its a great project for the impractical guy like me who can live with not being able to park it on the street because those euro bumpers ARE NOT for bumping, just looking cool. The best part performance wise is it takes a few hundred pounds off the car front and back! I actually had to lower the car back to euro spec to make it look right it raised so much once those old bumpers came off. The us bumpers were like 50 or 60 pds eack at least plus the shock boxes while the euro bumpers are like 1 pd each! Save yourself the hotrod engine work and take the weight off first!

df78alfa · #**340** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 07:25 PM

Murray.

Thanks for the reply. Yes I will have to find a way to obscure the radiator and also I'll have to figure out what to do with signal lights. I guess just remove them too and hope a policeman does not pull me over. Well, off it comes. Thats the first step anyway before converting to the other style.
Thanks again.

df78alfa · #**341** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 07:34 PM

Miah.

Thanks. I never even considered the weight issue. The car will thank me for it. Sorry to hear about your SUV incident, I guess that's the downside. It seems like the air flow would be greatly improved also. I had no idea that the bumpers were that heavy. Thanks for the encouragement and I would love to see a pic of your 78.

Miah · #**342** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 07:35 PM

When I took my front bumper off and was just driving around with no bumper I detached the turn signals from it and then set them up on little blocks resting on the valance panel at the front corners of the car. I hooked them back up and at least I had turn signals.

df78alfa · #**343** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 07:52 PM

Thanks. I'll probably do the same with the signal lights and I'll order one of the older style grilles. Thanks for the advice.

Finlandese · #**344** (**permalink**) 12-06-2005, 11:48 PM

msiert,

"I like the look of it but the shadow is hiding all the openess."

Not quite. It´s all painted black, with black mesh grille installed all the way thru´.
'
d78alfa

As far as the weight decrease goes, it was the cheapest horsepower I ever got... Just make sure to convert to euro bumper in the back or get as lucky as I did with finding perfect (and dare I say in my opinion better looking) replacement from some other car.

df78alfa · #**345** (**permalink**) 12-07-2005, 09:12 AM

[quote=Finlandese]msiert,

Not quite. It´s all painted black, with black mesh grille installed all the way thru´.
'

Yes. I would also like to know what type of material you used for the mesh grille and the method for installation. I really like that look. Thanks again.