If i was only wealthy

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191279118467?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649

This would be a good garage mate for Miss Scarlett, one with the red side molding and one with the black. While i prefer the body color side molding on Reatta's i could have "lived" with this one lol

By sheer coincidence my red '89 coupe daily driver has black side moldings, while the red '91 vert has red.

Life is good!

Very nice Reatta!

Oddly, it has '88-'89 style reversible floor mats. The other interesting thing, to me anyway, is that it is yet another Reatta with a black handled engine oil dipstick - as mine was. (We had quite a discussion in Portland over whether the dipstick should have a grey or black handle. Thanks to Jim Finn, I now have a proper grey handled one as well.)

You made me go out and check my Oil dipstick handle, it is grey. My mats are nib backed one sided.

And.......if that dipstick had NOT been gray, I would have heard the BOOM all the way to Michigan!

If that one had been black i would think someone would need to rethink that ruling. Has anyone looked into the possibility that the 90's with black are early builds?

I have looked at several customers cars and lots of our parts cars here, and there is no rhyme or reason to black vs. grey.

Several VERY low milage cars at Portland all had black. While Keith's has grey. Which one is correct? who knows. And does it really even matter?

It's about 50/50 with the parts cars here some have grey, some black. Engines came pre-assembled to the Craft center, it could have been GM started with black, then moved to grey because is was .002 cents cheaper.

Both should be considered original if anyone even cares. Doesn't it seem silly that we're discussing the color of a tiny DIP STICK?

What Marck says makes 100% sense, the engine really had nothing to do with the Reatta Craft Center and Reatta specific items. It was just another work mill sent out by the engine plant.

That said, i looked back at pictures of my white 90 and it had black.

Doesn't it seem silly that we're discussing the color of a tiny DIP STICK?

I think this stuff has some importance, not to the degree of Corvette owners, but it's interesting finding running differences, etc. You mention valve caps, to often little originality things like that get lost over time when some items even that small goes unnoticed in the judging ring, the older the cars get the more details are lost.

Something a little more substantial but in the same direction as an example, over the years many people have put the chrome road wheels on Electra's and it's now to the point where most people have no clue it was nit an option on Electra's until 73, to the point where i have seen them go unnoticed in judging at National, meets.

We need to make some attempt at preserving originality without going overboard.

You are right Keith. I was just getting a laugh about valve stem cap discussions that have turned into heated arguments here before.

You are right Keith. I was just getting a laugh about valve stem cap discussions that have turned into heated arguments here before.

Ronnie, I got it.

Again, judicious use of emoticons would help. No one can see the glint in your eye, nor mine. :eek:

Sometimes its obvious. Other times, not so much.

(Note to Webmaster... we need a larger variety of emoticons.)

Re. dipsticks, I've owned three MY of Reatta and all had black plastic handles (which, by the way, can be repaired with a product called *Plastic-Weld*. It can be found in most well stocked hobby stores.)

Not saying they were all original sticks. Just an assumation.

John F.

I think this stuff has some importance, not to the degree of Corvette owners, but it's interesting finding running differences, etc. You mention valve caps, to often little originality things like that get lost over time when some items even that small goes unnoticed in the judging ring, the older the cars get the more details are lost.

Something a little more substantial but in the same direction as an example, over the years many people have put the chrome road wheels on Electra's and it's now to the point where most people have no clue it was nit an option on Electra's until 73, to the point where i have seen them go unnoticed in judging at National, meets.

We need to make some attempt at preserving originality without going overboard.

Kind of reminds me of a certain judge at a BCA National Meet in Cincinnati several years ago that spent about 45 minutes on a '62 Skylark convertible nitpicking it to death. The car had scored 392 points the previous year, had over $2000 worth of 'corrections' to fix the issues, then was scored at 370 after the 'expert' judges finished 'going overboard'.

Just kind of proves some things never change.

My thoughts are that GM must have had (at least) two OEM suppliers of the dipsticks. The workers on the engine line would have just grabbed the next available box of them and starting sticking them in. In any event, I now have one of each dipstick style - so am prepared for any contingencies.

And Ronnie, some of us are blessed/cursed with cars where little details like this are important. I'm actually pretty proud of the Senior Gold award that my car earned in Portland. It was really nice of Jim and others to share their time and expertise to help me get things right.

Kind of reminds me of a certain judge at a BCA National Meet in Cincinnati several years ago that spent about 45 minutes on a '62 Skylark convertible nitpicking it to death. The car had scored 392 points the previous year, had over $2000 worth of 'corrections' to fix the issues, then was scored at 370 after the 'expert' judges finished 'going overboard'.

Just kind of proves some things never change.

It wasn't 45 minutes and wasn't it Columbus? One of the pitfalls in judging is some years you get judges that miss lots and some years you have a judge that don't. happens to us all. I prefer the ones in the know. That's why it's hard to find judges, the ones that do it right get chastised. Let it rest Bob, let it rest.

Keith,

A PM has been sent.

Got it and had a good laugh

When I first got out of college I worked for an OEM supplier of engine parts to GM engine plants. If I remember correctly, GM always has/had two suppliers churning out the same part for them all the time. (In some cases, we knew what our percentage of the market we had with each engine.). Also, the UAW contracts for us and our competitors had to be staggered so there would be at least one vendor making parts. Now, this was years ago, but it might help explain the color difference........different suppliers.

Oops! I have to correct what I said in post #12 about dipstick colors. I just looked under the hood of my '89 where the engine from my '88 resides.

The color of the dipstick handle of the '88 engine is, in fact, Grey. Sorry.

John F.