In a message dated 1/4/2001 10:18:24 PM Eastern Standard Time,
danb@thelittlemacshop.com writes:
> There are those among us (Joe Alexander, for example) who belive that
> the dip (or lack thereof) is due to there being more than one set of
> tooling used to produce the body panels.
>
> I've certainly seen a selection of the panels either way, though I
> haven't tested for bondo on any of them.
>
> Or perhaps it could be a pre- and post-TS60000 difference?
I'm waiting for TeriAnn to reply to this; we've all discussed it in the past!
:-)
My own theory is that it is NOT as early as the TS60000 break point. After
all, the wide mouth apron was introduced much, much later than was the rest
of the original TR2 body structure. The story goes that the original tooling
was wearing out, hence the new tooling and improvements with TS60001 and
future. At the same time, it stands to reason that the wide-mouth apron
tooling was still good enough at that time but might have worn not too long
after. Some have detected a seeming lack of this "dip" in very late TR3As and
TR3Bs, and that might (or might NOT) also correspond to the change to the
TR4/Herald-style smooth TRIUMPH letters.
All speculation on my part; nearly 40 years after the fact, there probably
are few folks left who might know for sure.
--Andy Mace
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