Sometimes it’s a box of chocolates you get that forces you to take little nibbles out of them to see what’s what, or a line-up of a dozen or more of the same model of something spanning a few years to see that what you thought was the same is subtly different. I’m sure you remember the day you saw an early 750 ‘eyebrow’ Sprint beside a later 101 ‘eggcrate’ Sprint and the heavens opened in that a-ha moment -they are the same car but utterly different. Well, I happen to have a nonet of Giulietta gauges on my dining table staring me down and just such a thing is happening. What I regarded as vaguely homogenous has demonstrated itself to be quite heterogeneous -especially in their elderly state.
In all their glory and with a sprinkling of other fun stuff -the gauges! Let’s see, I have two Veloce 140 MPH speedometers, 2 2000 – 8000 Veloce Tachometers, one English, one Italian, two tri-gauges, a normal speedometer, a normal tachometer and an empty tach case. Why? Because I can.
The real why is that I have a set of gauges to restore for a car I am working on, a few odds to clean up for sale, and some to find parts to help complete. Restore you ask? I have plans to figure out how to clean, calibrate and lube the mechanisms, paint the bits that need paint, source o-rings to replace the ancient ones etc etc.
A subtle difference -note the absence of shift pointers in the Veloce gauge. I’ll be sourcing some paint to redo that pinkish metallic of the outer rings. Wish me luck.
English oil pressure indicator in a Veloce tach. Also note the redline zone. I’ve seen many versions of the redline zone.
Italian oil pressure gauge. What units are the Italians measuring? I suppose I could do some test calculations… okay, I went to a metric conversion website -how does Newton’s per square centimeter sound -110 PSI is about 78 of them… I’ll have to make a pressure rig, maybe out of a bottle jack. Yes, that Italian gauge insert in the background is in great shape.
Here’s an oddity. The ‘Alfa Romeo Veglia’ transfer is EXACTLY the same as the one found on a silver background gauge. The redline wedge is (or was) perfectly formed, and there is no paint under the black on the face. Did Alfa make this gauge for something or did some one spend a chunk of $ on a custom gauge?Â
Some of these will be for sale soon. Someone is selling NOS Giulietta Gauges on eBay for $300 each, so I’ll wait for that to blow over before I offer up any of these. I suppose if you wanted I could restore your gauges. You may recall this set I did a few years ago (here and here). ClassicAlfa UK sells inserts, both Normale and Veloce in Metric/Italian. Yolanda still makes English Normale and Veloce inserts -contact me for her info if you’re interested. Anyone make English Metric? Does such a thing exist?
Also -I’m looking to buy crappy old Giulietta gauges that are not in service for parts, to work on and learn about -the worse the better I suppose!