Steve:
>From the picture, one cannot tell if it is actually an Alpine hood or not.
The presence of the Series I or II badge is a good clue that it may be an
early hood, but to truly tell, one would have to open the hood. First of all,
the fact that it's an early Tiger means that the "round-cornered" hood from an
early Alpine will fit onto the car. But, then you have the hood prop location
issue to deal with. Series I and II Alpines had a rather short hood prop rod
that was fastened to the cowl of the car. When the hood was raised, they
contacted the hood just behind the hood latch assembly in a special receptacle
bracket made for the prop. The only problem with those was that they didn't
allow the hood to be fully open when working on the car. At some point later
in the Series run of Alpines (maybe sometime during late Series II production
but certainly for the Series IIIs and up), they started mounting the hood prop
on the passenger side of the engine compartment, just like on your
B9473720LROFE car. There was also the little hood prop receptacle "tang" weld
onto the hoods to accept the hood prop on the passenger side at that point,
allowing the hoods to be open much more than before. They also went to a
different hood hinge at that time as well to allow the hood to open further.
The main thing that you need to know is that your car is not supposed to have
the hood badge that you see on the Ebay car; that much is absolutely for
sure.
As far as the body seam under the front edge of the door is concerned, it's
been my understanding all these years that when they went to the
square-cornered hood and square-cornered door cars, Rootes quit leading those
seams in. I'm sure it was costly for them to do so and, even though it made
the body look cleaner, it really served no purpose. Your car is what I
believe Norm refers to as a "cross-over" car, meaning it has the
square-cornered hood and doors of what would become a Mk1A trait, but still
retains the metal top boot cover of the Series IV Alpine / Mk1 Tiger. Once
again, your car is correct in showing the seam in question.
Take care,
Andy Walker
Edmond, OK
B382001600LRXFE
B9006857LRX
Former best friend of B9473720LROFE :-)
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