On Fri, 21 Jan 2000, Joe Curry wrote:
> Andy,
> All my resources (parts catalogs, etc.) indicate it was '70 but who can
> verify the accuracy of those things!
Sadly, not even some period vendor catalogs. Even my Lucas "Popular
Spares...1962-71" doesn't have it all correct (not surprising, when one
considers the number of different lamp possibilities for different
markets and their unique regulations). And my original Mk3 Spitfire spare
parts catalog (From Triumph, but only up to about 1969), doesn't give
much info on what side/flasher lamps were for what markets, although they
do give that for headlamp units.
> Thomason's book doesn't say anything about a change to the all amber
> ones on the home market cars (the focus of the book), so I assume they
> didn't change to them until after the Mk3 was finished with.
> His photo of a car that illustrates the front of an "after 75,000" Mk3
> shows the split, 2-color lens.
>
> I'd think that a change as significant as that would have fetched at
> least a footnote.
It probably would have merited a note, had Thomason been concerned with
US-spec cars, which basically he wasn't. Only in passing does he even
refer to US-spec cars in one or two areas. Not a criticism of him or the
book, just a note to those who would take the book as "gospel" for
Spitfires the world over! :-)
I did look again in Thomason, though, and I noticed that there was a
different style of white side/amber flasher lamp introcued on the home
market MkIV. But I don't recall ever seeing anything like that here.
Again, by the 1970 models, the US-spec cars had gone to that
dual-filament-bulb, amber-lens combination lamp that continued pretty much
throughout the end of the Spitfire 1500 (US-spec).
--Andy
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