Okay, here's a "significant opposing view". I like the square arches on
the later Midgets. (So call me a weirdo.)
The reason that the round arches are so rare is that it was a sylist's
change that conflicted with engineering needs.
The Frogeye had round wheel arches, but then again, the Frogeye had no
bootlid! When they made that big square opening for the bootlid, they
lost a lot of structural stiffness back there. When they went to the
1/2 elliptic rear axle (not to mention meeting the 5 MPH impact
standards), they needed that missing stiffness, hence, the square
arches. The round arches were an anomalous result of a stylist getting
a change put through over the engineer's heads. It got changed back
when there started to be problems.
At least that's the story as told by Horler's "Original Sprite and
Midgets" book. I would tend to trust that as a reliable source.
Now as for the aesthetic value, the "squarebody" Midget with round wheel
arches just looks "wrong" to me. The Frogeye's round arches
complemented the rounded rear end, the squared off rear arches, to me,
compliment the more squared off rear end of the later cars.
But, as has been often said by many on this list (me included) "It's
_your_ car, do what you want."
Chris
Ajhsys@aol.com wrote:
>
> If you have the option of converting to RWA, do it. You can't get much wider
> tires if you keep the SWA openings. If competition is in your future, you
> will need to have RWA or flared fenders.
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