[TR] Early TR4 windshield cap and cockpit trim

Steven Newell steven at newellboys.net
Mon May 18 08:35:21 MDT 2009


nwolf at u.washington.edu wrote:

> Hi everybody
>   It's been a while since we had any early-TR4 questions, so here goes.
>   On the "very early" cars, according to Piggot, the windshield cap 
> and cockpit perimeter trim pieces were chrome-plated brass.  This 
> changed quickly to the much more common anodized aluminum pieces.
>   I have located what might be an early chrome-plated windshield cap, 
> and I need a little help:
>
> 1. Are the early pieces magnetic at all?  Piggot says it's brass under 
> there, so there should not be any attraction... but I've heard it said 
> on this list that the parts are actually chrome-plated steel.  The 
> seller says he's not sure if there is any attraction or not.  Maybe 
> it's stainless steel?
> 2. Are there any visual differences between the early and later parts, 
> other than shinyness?  (I have seen this on a couple of early cars... 
> too bad I wasn't paying closer attention)
> 3. When did the switch to aluminum occur?
> 4. What's an early windshield cap worth? 

1. How about that? I have a set of the early trim pieces and they're 
mildly magnetic. A weak fridge magnet I have didn't stick but a stronger 
bulletin-board magnet did when I held the piece upside down.
2. They appear to be identical stampings. The aluminum pieces should be 
slightly tweaked from kids climbing in and out of the bench seat. On 
mine, at least. :) The aluminum looks slightly yellowey-er to me, but 
really not much.
3. My CT5018LO has aluminum trim pieces all around.
4. Depends on if it's on eBay or not. :) Since it's only "correct" on a 
small number of cars, it's worth either very little or very much.

Steven


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