[Apologies; I lost the original post!]
On Mon, 6 Apr 1998, Barry Schwartz wrote:
> >did spitfires have vinyl covered dashes at one
> >time?
> The 72 Spitfire, while not vinyl covered, did have a matte plastic, moulded
> dash, not unlike the GT6, without the eyeball vents due to impending US
> reg,s at the time concerning reflective surfaces in the cockpit - and I
> wouldn't swear to it (don't have my reference material, and memory isn't
> what it used to be), but I would imagine the GT6 also carried this
> configuration.
AFAIK, all GT6s have had some sort of wooden dash. The GT6+ and Mk.3
models had layouts that largely paralleled those of the "Federal"
Spitfires, save for some minor changes in layout of the center panel
(extra switches for the GT6 dome lamp and heated rear window -- on the GT
the temp. and fuel gauges are much closer together) and the eyeball vents
that Spitfires did not have.
The "Federal" dashboard was introduced for the 1969 U.S. models. At that
time, the three pieces were a plywood with a vinyl covering. Sometime
during the 1970 model year, Triumph appeared to have phased in the molded
plastic panels that carried over to the Mk.IV Spitfire. They look almost
exactly the same until you get really close.
--Andrew Mace, President, VTR, etc.
[further apologies; I've temporarily lost my .sig file!]
|