308 GT4

Sounds good!

 

Beautiful melody. How can I get the euro bumpers? Anywhere I can source them? Need to replace the NA ugly and heavy bumpers.

 

What country are you in? Mr Fiat has two different styles of Euro bumpers.


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I'm in Canada. Mr Fiat is a supplier?

 

Got it. Checked out the website. Which bumper is the best looking? Can't tell. I like the smaller, less intrusive.

 

The body panels on a Euro car are different than the US cars. At a minimum you will need to weld metal into the cutouts in the front and rear fenders where the longer US bumpers fit and the mounting holes for the side trim pieces. All doable but not “plug and play”. Have you tried simply retracting the existing bumpers so the don’t protrude so much?


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Keep in mind that it's not as easy as simply swapping out bumpers (if you're going for a "correct" look). Euro cars had different body panels from US cars, thus you would need to perform some body work to get the actual Euro look. Euro cars don't have the black plastic side moulding on the bumpers like US cars.

In this case the bumpers have been removed or replaced, but the rubber side moldings have been left in place. I've seen a number of people who replace the US bumpers with a lightweight homemade grille piece.

Here's a good comparison shot. The car on top is a Euro spec car. The car on bottom is a US spec car with the rubber side moldings removed. You can see the "notches" in the body of the US car that Euro cars don't have.

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How do you retract the existing US bumpers so that it doesn't protrude so much? Also, how much can you retract?
Thank you.

 

The bumpers are attached to the chassis by pressurized shock absorbers. By drilling through the body of the shock the pressurized fluid can be drained and the bumpers pushed back and will stay in place. Tom Yang has a video that covers it.





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I think I'm the only person who just doesn't like this.

The video is great, and it's good that this exists as so many people do this to their cars. But I just don't like the result because it just doesn't look right. As Tomy noted in his video, there's now a large gap between the side piece and the bumper, and if you remove the side pieces you end up with the exposed notches in the body work (see photo in post #8). No matter how you slice it, it looks like the car has been hacked once the job is complete (well, I guess it has).

There's Euro bumpers and US bumpers. Yes, I do agree that Euro bumpers look better, but I also don't see a problem with the US bumpers. Every car in America in the 70s and 80s has big bumpers. It's just an endearing sign of the times. I'm really happy that no one ever modified the bumpers on my car, and I certainly never will!

But, to each their own. I fully support people doing what they want to their cars. It's just so many people act as if this is a really big deal, and it really isn't. I wonder how much of this is a result of peer pressure too? When I got my car, literally EVERYONE told me "you should push in the bumpers," as if it causes some sort of problem if you don't. Simply put (at least for me), the car looks great with US bumpers or Euro bumpers… but not with hacked bumpers.

 

You have a very nice example of a GT4 for which it is worth preserving its originality. Others may not and so it may not be so much of a concern. I don’t care either way just thought it an easier route than trying to attach Euro bumpers to a US car.


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Thank you, kiwiokie! I share your sentiment, and it is definitely much easier than trying to fit Euro bumpers to a US car. And I don't care either way as well, as long as it's not my car. I think my main concern is if people are really thinking it through or if they're just succumbing to "peer pressure" (so to speak). Almost everyone I've encountered has either recommended or at least as asked if I was going to push in the bumpers. They seemed shock when I tell them "No," and proceed to tell them I like the bumpers the way they are.

People need to know it's not a flaw, nothing is wrong with the car, and big bumpers will not cause any problem. They have a choice, and they should only do it if they really want to do it and not because "everyone" has told them to do it.

 

+1

The GT4 is a fast, nimble, great handling car. It has the barest of creature comforts as-delivered. When I re-painted my car, I prepped it for paint which means it was stripped down to the barest essentials. I recall I could feel a significant difference in acceleration etc. At the end of the day...I was happy to return it to its original state. I didn't want strictly a track beast, and I missed the stereo and protection that I never hoped to need. Also, I like the symphony of the Webers & transmission sounds with some exhaust note. IMHO, with loud exhaust, that's all I hear.

 

I'm struggling to see how having the US -spec park bench bumpers front and rear look fine with the side caps fitted, but the pushed in bumpers with the side caps fitted looks bad.

If the pushed in bumpers sat behind the leading edge of the side caps, then yes, it would look seriously weird, but from the pictures I've seen, the side caps still sit behind the bumper's front leading edge, so still looks okay.

I have to say that this thread is the first time I have ever heard US-spec park bench bumpers as being described as being: "an endearing sign of the times", on any car.

Being from the UK, the only car I've ever had to own with US-spec park bench bumpers were my 1500cc FIAT X1/9's - And they never looked as good as the 1300 X1/9's with the quarter bumpers front and rear.

with very few exceptions (the US-spec Ferrari 328 series being one of them), the park bench bumpers looked dreadful "back in the day", and they look just as awful today - In general, they're just too large and clunky - Even for big square chunky cars like 80's Volvo's!

I seriously doubt people are giving their cars the euro bumper look due to what others say/peer-pressure - I think it's far more likely they do it because purely they just think the park bench bumpers look awful.

 

And that explains it. You grew up the UK. I grew up in the US. Literally every car had those bumpers here in that time period, no matter what make or model. It's perfectly normal.

And pushing the US bumpers in doesn't even remotely give it the "Euro bumper look," it just looks like the bumpers are pushed in. There's a lot more elegance to the Euro bumpers.

But let me explain why I think they look worse pushed in. As ugly as you think the US bumpers may be, they still have an element of design to them. There's a tapered look to them and the side caps are one of three "steps" to that design. The bumper itself has two "steps" thus forming the graduated look. When the pumpers are pushed in, you loose one (or both) of those steps and the design no longer works as intended. It no longer goes from large to medium to small, but rather it goes from large to small (or large to… nothing!).

Now, push in those US bumpers and remove the side caps and it doesn't look as bad because you've removed the "large" step in the design, so you're just going from medium to small, and that works as no steps are skipped, we're just starting at a different point. The problem is with the side caps removed you expose the notches in the body panels which aren't attractive either.

This is all from a design perspective. Look at the pictures below, they illustrate what I'm talking about.

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In the above example, the blue car has a graduated "step" design. The red car has pushed in the bumpers and now it just looks like someone cut off the end with a knife. It looks unfinished, unintentional. Or as we in the industry would call it; bad design.

Also, the enormous gap that's left when you push in the bumpers is another element that makes it even more unattractive. In the shot below, again, the blue car is a normal US car. But the black car has had its bumpers pushed in. You can drive a bus through the gap left there!
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But, again, it's all a matter of opinion. You grew up in a different part of the world, but like I said for the US, every car ever made in that time period had huge bumpers. It's just normal. But you are free to think that huge gaps and mutilated design are better looking than what was intended. You said you were "struggling" to understand, so I explained it from my point of view: design.

 

Been there... Done that...

I know you won't heed my advice; but, don't bother. Get a nice sounding stock exhaust so you can enjoy your car in the long-run. They don't need glass-packs. These are 16" that came with the care when I bought it from the previous owner. I put a Magna-Flow on mine (that's what you seen under there in this picture). It sounded like and F1 car, ripping through 2nd, getting onto the freeway. And going under the double underpass at Brand(?) on the 134, on the way to the F-show at the Rose Bowl, it nearly stopped traffic. But those moments are fleeting and you won't want that when you're taking your wife (or date) out to a nice dinner.


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