Thomas Automobile CH

As mentioned in the previous blog, someone posted more recent photo's about the Sierra Stationwagon. When I checked his profile I noticed by surprise he runs a garage wearing his own name. Not only that, it turns out he's very specialized and has a great history with the Monteverdi brand. At the time he was the mechanic for the Monteverdi Formula racecars and also performed maintenance on the cars in the museum. So that explains why he's currently maintaining the Sierra Stationwagon. I have added his website at the sidebar under miscellaneous:

http://www.thomasautomobile.ch/

His website has some very nice photo galleries with many interesting cars and clearly a lot of Monteverdi's. How cool is that?

More Monteverdi Sierra Kombi

Someone in the FB group posted the Sierra Stationwagon again, as shown in this blog:

https://monteverdisierra.blogspot.com/2018/04/monteverdi-sierra-stationwagon-kombi.html

This resulted in additional responses and new photo's. Apparently the car is at a garage to make it roadworthy/driveable again since it had been standing still for a long time in the museum.

Dodge Aspen color codes

I was informed the Monteverdi Sierra's used simply the same color scheme as originally provided by Dodge. But I'm pretty sure if the customer wanted a different color that would have been possible. We suspect the color of our Sierra is "Carmel Tan Poly" (2856). As we have removed the interior we can see the same color is used throughout which more or less confirms it's a Dodge color. The supporting archive picture of our car below is not exactly good reference material due to light distortion. The picture below is more accurate and a true representation of the used color on our car.

Another reference link:

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?type=paint&paint=17881&dtcode=DT6486&smodel=Dodge&syear=1976&smanuf=Chrysler&sname=Carmel%20Tan

http://wildaboutcarsonline.com/cgi-bin/pub9990262549620.cgi?categoryid=9970474822090&action=viewad&itemid=9990513004078

Monteverdi Sierra intererior seats

One of the things we have not solved is the mystery of the used chairs in the Sierra.

According to the German Wikipedia they are coming from a BMW:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monteverdi_Sierra

"Im Innenraum installierte Monteverdi Sitze von BMW, die ebenso wie die Seitenverkleidungen mit Leder bezogen waren"

It was unclear exactly which BMW model was used. So I posted the question on the Monteverdi Facebookgroup. The first response was a 7 Series E23. This was potential a good guess, the E23 was launched in 1977 around spring. So actually to new to be used for the Sierra which got launched around the same time. Also some other details were slightly different. The next post mentioned the BMW 5 Series E12. Another good guess and a car that started production in 1972. But again some minor details were different. Then someone mentioned the BMW E3 with the electric adjustment used from the Aspen. The E3 makes more sense production wise but also the details looks correct. And he was right about the reused adjustments from the Aspen:

Note the power controlled seats (and windows) were optional and only for the driver seat

Find all Dodge brochures here: http://www.lov2xlr8.no/dodge.html

And for comparisson the Aspen chairs and the used E3 chair. In fact they had quite a variety of chairs in the Aspen, pending the model used and how luxurious you wanted it to be:

BMW E3 seats:

I'm unsure about the rear bench used though in the MV Sierra, I suspect it's Original whereby they added headrests and an armrest to it. Likely the headrests and armrest are coming from the E3 as well.

Appointments

On my holiday return there were the UK papers waiting for me in the mail. Nice. So I contacted the guy who offered to assist me in loading the car on the trailer and drive to the Dutch registration shop. We agreed on a date and made the appointment with the "RDW". Done! Hopefully no silly surprises to get the car registered. It's a very unusual car and I don't think ever one got a Dutch License plate before. So fingers crossed. We have to wait for 1 month since it requires a special check due to it's age (older then 30 years) but it does not require a technical check, clearly that will fail by a long distance …

Next I made contact with the guy who I was informed about to perform the bodywork. Clearly he can't say a sensible thing without seeing the car in real. So an appointment was made and we met yesterday. A very nice and knowledgeable guy. The fact he was into Italo cars resulted in a quick click. Some ideas and estimated numbers were worked out which we now need to digest. In any case, if I need any car bodywork to be done in the future he's surely on the top of my list.

Shortly after in the afternoon I visited an American car demolition garage in Helmond. It's Addie's Autoshop and he doesn't have a website. On the Dutch Marktplaats I had seen he had a Dodge Aspen and a Plymouth Volare on stock for parts. Obviously I was interested and only after the cars body parts, ie the floor.

Both cars were in a poor shape (except for the interior) and simply not useable for our needs. Addie was quite clear about it as well and advised to buy a proper one instead. And hereby some photo's I made of them for reference. Typical that both looks like to have the same color as our Monteverdi.

Plymouth Volare (6 cyl):

Dodge Aspen (special edition apparently and 6 cyl)

Verkehrshaus Luzern - Montverdi collection

During my holiday leave I stayed over in Swiss. I also stayed a few days at Luzern. And in Luzern there is the Transport Museum which more or less is a very large building which hold more functions and musea. See their website: https://www.verkehrshaus.ch/en

Part of their car collection is the Monteverdi section, which is not a surprise obviously.
In fact the majority of the cars where on display. Except the Sierra, sigh! Well, in any case, here some pictures I took:

Monteverdi brochure : Sahara + Safari + Sierra

Surprise, I have caught another brochure for our collection. Not a very spectucalair one though.
The backside does contain the specs. It's now available in the download folder.

Although not very visible on this scan, it's stamped by the dealer Autohaus Mendler, BMW direkthändler, 0958 Füssen/allg. This company still exists today and is now part of https://www.widmann-winterholler.de (http://www.bmw-mendler.de)