Max Heim SEZ -
> Well, everyone is entitled to an opinion <g>, but I guess you weren't around
> in the 60s when metal dashes were the norm. I would have to describe your
> statement as essentially inaccurate.
Oh, I was around in the 60s alright. Even though I wasn't old enough
to drive.
> Certainly in 1962 "sheet metal punched
> full of holes" was standard in sports cars that didn't rate the full wood
> treatment, and there wasn't any third option (outside of Detroit plastic
> fantasies). And in 1968 I had certainly never seen anything that remotely
> resembled the "Abingdon pillow", and I didn't see anything like it again
> until air bags became mandatory.
Certainly aesthetics are in the eye of the beholder, and I didn't
write what I did to try to convince anybody to change his mind, but
I will maintain that the early MGB dash looked anachronistic and
the later dash was refreshingly modernistic in comparison.
> But industrial design history (and
> esthetics) aside, a major objection to that dash style is the absence of a
> lockable storage compartment, necessary in an open car.
It's called the trunk! :-) It would have been possible to make a
drop-down glove compartment under the dash but it would have taken
space away from the radio speaker. Personally, I don't think any
glove compartment would be much of a deterrent to a thief with the
desire to ransack your car. They are all pretty easy to pop open
with a big enough screw driver, and the fact that it was locked
would probably only encourage them. But I *still* like the look of
that interior. My first car was a 1968 MGB and if I was to buy
another B I'd be looking for a 68-70 model, one that hadn't had the
interior butchered. I'm a preservationist at heart so I'd be
looking for a car that's as stock as possible anyway.
--
David Breneman | "Just because something doesn't
Distributed Systems S/W Analyst | do what you planned it to do
Airborne Express, Inc. | doesn't mean it's useless."
david.breneman@airborne.com | - Thomas Edison
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|