Am I mistaken? Didn't Alfa Romeo take the kamm tail thing rather seriously in
the late sixties, seventies? Fiat also. Zagato was a big proponent of the kamm
tail as was Bertone.
Bob Denton
FastmetalBDF@aol.com wrote:
> Bruce,
> Thanks for the kind words about CCSRB and my T !
> Sorry if I gave the impression that I thought the MB 190 was the first
> car to sue the Kammback theory, as I know MB took the theory to heart
> very quickly, even in the late Thirties. The 190 was just an example I
> was very intimately connected with. Actually, because of my employment
> at Motor Trend in '70, I got to know the facts, flaws and foibles of
> the Vega Kammback and its kin quite well, which we got hoodwinked into
> picking as Car of the Year because the samples we got to test were
> heavily massaged handbuilt versions from the GM proving ground in
> Arizona (there was a UAW strike going on at the time, and those were
> the only ones we could get). Anyway, they rode like full-size Impalas and
> checked out at .9g on the skid pad. When we got hold a real Kammback
> wagon and GT, we found the QC was lousy (I called Lloyd Reuss, the Vega
> chief engineer, later the head of Buick division and a basically decent
> guy) and asked what happened and he sent a technician to respond to all
> my many complaints about quality shortcomings, an exercise which was
> less than satisfying, as the guy mostly shrugged as I demonstrated the
> gripes. The wagon got 15 mpg in normal driving, albeit with Powerglide,
> and the GT had about a third of the front suspension travel of the cars
> we tested. I realized we'd been had. Then the overheating problems made
> themselves known. Next, a rear axle retainer clip was prone to break.
> Then there recalls...one because the engine vibrated some severly that
> the carb top screws came loose, leaning the misture, causing a
> backfiring in the muffler, which in turn heated the gas tank above and
> caused newly filled tanks to overflow, leading to fires at the rear of
> the car (the fix was Loc-Ting the carb screws). Of course, it's
> contender for the COY title that year was the Pinto, also a nascent
> firebomb.
> There's a book in there someplace.
> A.B.
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