Glass to Steel 308: How??

My understanding is that they switched to steel because it was a huge cost savings. The Italian manufacturers have a long history of designing spectacular cars and doing the math later. When they find out it costs them more to build the car than they can sell it for, they start decontenting. On the 308GTB, this meant axing the strong, light glass body, dropping the dry sump in all but the most demanding markets, going from that slick easy-to-remove rear decklid to a bolted on deck lid, etc, etc. ON the COuntach, it meant going from unbelievable amounts of magnesium in the suspension componentry on the early LP400 to much more mundane (cheaper) stuff on later Countaches. The cars gained weight by hundreds of lbs, just like the 308s. One of my favorite examples is the Alfa Romeo 750 series veloces. Alfa must have lost a bundle on every one, but the car has details that are just so cool. WHen the 101 series cars came out, they were still neat, but a lot of the little details were gone (to be fair, they improved some engineering details). No more chrome fasteners on the motors, though. Usually, the best of any series of Italian sports cars is the first one, which is the purest, most beautiful and least compromised. They tend to go downhill after that, although they may improve in driveability and comfort. It would be fun to pick 10 top-quality Italian sports cars and graph the weight of each car as a function of years from introduction to end of production. Up, up, up...with few exceptions.