Bumper Question

J

jfriese

Guest
Hello Amphi Fans,
Does anyone have an idea why Amphicar went from the early (cleaner)
one piece front bumper to the later two piece type? The later type
has more parts, (i.e. more places for rust to start) took more labor
to assemble and, just generally, looks more crude. I've wondered
about this for some time and just wondered if anyone actually has an
answer.

John Friese

White 67
Red 67
 
B

buoyant3

Guest
John:
I believe it was because accidental bumps usually did more harm to
one side of the bumper than the other, and that replacing only half a
bumper usually was all it took to repair the mishap, and at a lesser
cost.
Marty
BUOYANT in WI
'64 Turq

--- In amphicar-lovers@y..., "jfriese" <jfriese@m...> wrote:
>
8<...snip...
> Does anyone have an idea why Amphicar went from the early (cleaner)
> one piece front bumper >
> John Friese
>
> White 67
> Red 67
 
M

Mike Echemann

Guest
Re: Re: Bumper Question

John:
The tooling does wear out. If you look at either type bumper you will
notice they are not as solid in later production vs earlier. I agree the
one piece is probably stronger yet I think the two piece look better for
some reason.
Be happy for what you have when it comes to Amphi's and be thankful you
wern't looking for bumpers 5 to 10 years ago.

Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "jfriese" <jfriese@mindspring.com>
To: <amphicar-lovers@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 6:32 PM
Subject: [amphicar-lovers] Re: Bumper Question


> Hi Marty,
> Of course, in my case both halves of the bumper were damaged by the
> bump since they mashed against each other at the joint. The reason I
> think it's weird is that the tooling cost for the single piece bumper
> would be a big factor in doing it but it was already done for the
> early cars. Going to the two piece actually took some effort and
> expense, not to mention the ongoing additional labor of assembling
> the things. The single piece is, I suspect, a stronger unit too.
> Perhaps the single piece mold was damaged and it was cheaper to
> replace it in two sections. Sounds like a bad excuse though.
>
> John Friese
>
> --- In amphicar-lovers@y..., "buoyant3" <martyandcaryl@c...> wrote:
> > John:
> > I believe it was because accidental bumps usually did more harm to
> > one side of the bumper than the other, and that replacing only half
> a
> > bumper usually was all it took to repair the mishap, and at a lesser
> > cost.
> > Marty
> > BUOYANT in WI
> > '64 Turq
> >
> > --- In amphicar-lovers@y..., "jfriese" <jfriese@m...> wrote:
> > >
> > 8<...snip...
> > > Does anyone have an idea why Amphicar went from the early
> (cleaner)
> > > one piece front bumper >
> > > John Friese
> > >
> > > White 67
> > > Red 67
>
>
>
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>
 
J

jfriese

Guest
Hi Marty,
Of course, in my case both halves of the bumper were damaged by the
bump since they mashed against each other at the joint. The reason I
think it's weird is that the tooling cost for the single piece bumper
would be a big factor in doing it but it was already done for the
early cars. Going to the two piece actually took some effort and
expense, not to mention the ongoing additional labor of assembling
the things. The single piece is, I suspect, a stronger unit too.
Perhaps the single piece mold was damaged and it was cheaper to
replace it in two sections. Sounds like a bad excuse though.

John Friese

--- In amphicar-lovers@y..., "buoyant3" <martyandcaryl@c...> wrote:
> John:
> I believe it was because accidental bumps usually did more harm to
> one side of the bumper than the other, and that replacing only half
a
> bumper usually was all it took to repair the mishap, and at a lesser
> cost.
> Marty
> BUOYANT in WI
> '64 Turq
>
> --- In amphicar-lovers@y..., "jfriese" <jfriese@m...> wrote:
> >
> 8<...snip...
> > Does anyone have an idea why Amphicar went from the early
(cleaner)
> > one piece front bumper >
> > John Friese
> >
> > White 67
> > Red 67
 
A

Allan Woodcock

Guest
Maybe one one of the "old timers" can help us with John's question and
end all of this guessing.
The one piece bumpers are a lot harder to make. They look better than
the two piece and that may be why they were on the early cars. Economics
may have been behind the decision to switch to the two piece units. I
have been selling more one piece bumpers than two piece bumpers, some of
which are going on late cars.
Allan
red '66
 
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