I've been mulling over this ride height business, and flipping through
pictures, including the pictures of the 1/4 model of the original design.
I've become somewhat suspicious that they made a mistake in executing the
final car from the design.
First, if you look at the model, you will see that (1) the wheels
completely fill the wheel wheels, with no gap, (2) the rear wheel well
actually seems to come over the rear tire a bit, (3) the rear wheel well
lip actually has a more raked back look on top, rather than a simply round
opening, (4) given the relative dimensions of the wheels to the car, it
appears those wheels were originally planned to be 14" wheels (which I'm
pretty sure I've read elsewhere), and (5) the top line on the cars along
the fenders is only gently pointed up.
Second, if you look at all the production cars (period shots, not
contemporary shots with sagging springs, etc.), you see that (1) all the
cars had gaps in the front, with the SV seeming to be the worse, (2) none
of the shots show the wheels filling the well, (3) even the rear tires have
a small gap, (4) the top line on the cars went closer to horizontal as time
went on (and the front gap increased), and (5) if the front gap on a car is
small enough to really fill the wheel well in an amount that seems "right",
the top fender line is rather severe, pushing the rear points up even
higher (which is usually contemporary cars, not period shots, suggesting
some after-factory modification).
So based upon these observations (which I'd be glad to hear disputed), I
think the gap in the front wheel well is too large for four reasons (1) the
wheel wells were designed for 14" wheels, and were not changed when they
went to 13" wheels, (2) even with the 14" wheels, somehow the proportions
were off from the 1/4 model to the final car so that the front wheel well
is cut too high (resulting in the higher fins in back if filled right), (3)
in response to criticism about how pointy the fins were, Rootes tried to
lessen the impact by lifting the front to rotate down the fins, and/or (4)
US regulations required that the headlights be raised to a certain height.
These are only guesses, and some wild at that, but worth considering.
As a corrollary to this, there are those spacers that fit between the
crossmember and the frame. This also further increases the ride height of
the front end and the gap between the tires and the fender. Victoria
British used to sell these and showed what cars they started on. I don't
seem to have an old VB catelog that shows that VIN number. But, what was
the purpose of that spacer? If the front end was a multi-use front end,
and used on other cars, I can see how they might have needed some sort of
adjustment. But, if it was Alpine only, the only possible reasons I can
come up with are that (1) they wanted to push up the ride height in front
(for one of the reasons above) or (2) the angle of the crossmember was
wrong and it was cheaper to make these spacers than to redesign the whole
front end.
Any thoughts, disagreements, further facts would be welcome.
Jay
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 08:45:22 CDT