I think that you are going to have to look back farther than the Alpine to
find this answer. This car was based upon the Hillman Husky and this car
shared many of the sheet metal panels from other Rootes cars. These
stampings were generic for probably all cars made at the time using the same
firewall and front crossmember. I am positive that they cut costs by having
only 1 set of dies to stamp these pieces so they are common to all cars in
this range. I just looked at my Alpine and can find no reason for them to be
there, so a more realistic way to answer this would be to look at a Rapier,
Husky, or Minx.
I can think back to the days when everyone wanted to know why the Alpine and
Tiger had those cut outs on the rear shelf only to find that they were the
back seat attach points in a Rapier or Minx.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Walker" <awtiger@cox.net>
To: <alpines@autox.team.net>; "Tiger List" <tigers@autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 10:42 AM
Subject: Re: Saturday night puzzler
> > On February 26, 2005, Curtis wrote:
>
> > In the passenger fender well
> > behind the strut brace and lower are two large 'dents'...
>
> > Even an Alpine outside has the same dents but
> > no items are mounted near them to suggest what they are
> > for...
>
> > Does anyone know what these were for?
>
> Curtis:
>
> I think I have the answer to your puzzler. I went out to my shop where I
> keep both my street Tiger and my vintage racer Alpine to take a look.
> Currently, only my Tiger is out there, as my Alpine is down at a friend's
> race shop where I have the benefit of using his lift for some work I was
> needing to do.
>
> Anyway, after finding the "dents" you were talking about, it hit me like a
> ton of bricks. I'll lay odds that those dents were pressed into the inner
> fender during the manufacturing process to allow for clearance for the
> Alpine steering gear. As you are probably aware, the Alpine had a
steering
> box instead of a rack and pinion like the Tigers. All of their
> "side-to-side" steering gear was located behind the engine and over the
top
> of the bell housing. As the Rootes factory replacement parts book calls
> them, both the "drop arm" and the "relay lever" (idler arm and pitman arm
in
> American terms) are mounted on an Alpine roughly where the engine mounts
> attach to the chassis on a Tiger, which happens to be just forward of the
> "dents" you are talking about. Without having the benefit of looking at
my
> Alpine to confirm this right now, I'm betting that these "dents" allow
these
> two aforementioned components to swivel from side to side in an
unrestricted
> manner when the steering wheel is turned. Consequently, since the Tiger
> more or less shares a body shell with the Alpine, Rootes probably saw no
> need to spend the money it would have taken to delete those "dents" for
the
> Tiger.
>
> As you can see, I've also forwarded this response to the Alpine list with
> the hope that our friends there can confirm this for us. I won't be
seeing
> my Alpine again until next weekend so, as I stated above, I myself won't
be
> able to confirm this until then.
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