Jay Laifman wrote:
> Well, I may be joining Scott Christie's Series III Registry much sooner
> than I ever expected - in fact, I never expected to join it. I have found
> two very clean Alpine bodies available. One is a letter "straight" fin
> car, like mine. The other is a Series III GT (no folding top, larger boot
> area, factory matching "square" hard top). Right now, the deal on the
> Series III is better than the Series V. With either, I would have it
> painted and transfer over all of my Series V mechanicals (engine,
> suspension, etc) and interior. The tough part is that I generally perfer
> the straight fins and round top. I have spent all weekend pouring over my
> collection of Alpine magazine articles, books, and even that video tape
> from SS with all the racing and Rootes promo videos, trying to decide what
> I like better. I actually have decided that I like the front of the early
> cars better with the small turn signals, finer grill and the badge on the
> bonnet. As to the hard top, I am torn - I now sort of think that the later
> top would look better with the high fins and the round top good with both.
> As to the fins, I like the idea that the fins are closer to the designers
> original concept of a flowing car from front to rear - sort of like the car
> is at speed (it's too bad they had to push the angle of the windshield more
> upright in the later cars, taking away from that concept). But, from
> certain angles, I don't know, the fins are rather extreme and do remind
> even me of the amphibian car (so do the straight fins, just not as much).
> There was one comment I read that said the earlier cars were clearly 50's
> cars and the later cars were clearly 60's cars. I see exactly what the
> author meant. The way the badge was taken from the bonnet and moved to a
> "floating" badge in the grill - sooo 60's.
>
> Thanks for listening to my ramblings. Feel free to flame me for any of my
> suggestions or opinions.
>
> Jay
>
> P.S. I did look at a few of the Alpines on Jarrid's for sale list. The 66
> for $1700 is a factory OD. If it was not for the damage to the front
> fender/headlight area, with a questionable repair, I might have picked that
> one up.