Silhouette thread

Do you still have your nice black Jalpa with Bravo wheels? I like the look of it. However, Sil is much lighter and cleaner looking car.

 

I am under the impression, you can still find a driver Countach for 70K. Some claim, the 70K price is too low.

Joey,

That is true.



I drove an injected Jalpa. I liked the shifter and feel.

In addition, I would guess, a lot of enthusiastic car people, have no idea what a Silhouette is. How can you lust for a car, you do not even know exists ? Over the years, the car has obtained little coverage, from the automotive rags.

I still cannot imagine a typical buyer choosing the Silhouette over the Countach. I am not taking anything away from the Silhouette. How many Silhouette posters were produced, with a hot girl laying on the hood ?

 

Interesting points of view...

the early cars did come with silhouette/urraco tail lamps, ferrero steering wheel, brake boosters plus various other drivetrain parts.

imo the bravo wheels makes a world of difference on the jalpas filling out the large wheel wells. im not sure who was responsible P118 since gandini left about the time the silhouette was being baked. for the jalpa, its been said, deschamp thought the larger dia 16inch OZ were much too large aesthetically but the marketing guys insisted. on the athon they were 15incher shod with same tires as the silhs. i always wonder how different the japla drove with the option bravos since the suspension wasnt alter (as far as i know) for the much wider rear P7's.

the weight difference between the two is much closer than what has been printed between the euro spec cars. I don’t have much faith in the 30 yr old published weight claims or current classic car mags with specs. Worse case comparison can come in at over 600lbs. I say its less than half of that. from what i can tell, the added weight was put to good use in adding reinforcement to scalped urraco platform.

my 2 cents

 

injected jalpa? must be aftermarket?

i would love to hear more about it...

cheers

hf

 

My mistake

I forgot, the U.S. car, has a pollution-control type of box that encloses the Webers.

 

As part of my adjustable damper development exercise I had my LHD Silhouette corner weighed with a full tank of fuel and original wheels. Here are the results in Kgs.

................Left........Right....Total
Front.........295........307.......602.....42.3%
Rear..........403........418.......821.....57.7%
Total.........698........725......1423...100.0%
................49.1%....50.9%
Cross.........710.......713.......1423
................49.9%....50.1%

Judging by the cross weights they certainly knew what they were doing!

 

There are at least two Fuel Injected Jalpas I know of...Laust's being the most advanced with a twin turbo hooked up in serial /parallel witht he flip of a switch.

There are also at least two twin turbo cars as well in the US.

 

From what I have been able to discover the Silhouette and Jalpa shared the same rear springs and dampers
The bump/rebound data is the same for Urraco and Silhouette though there was a different part number, now combined.

For me the key difference is the tyre diameter. This will affect the ride height, speedometer reading and at the rear the gearing. I took the following data from the web so cannot vouch for its accuracy.

Front
P250...........205/70 14" = 645mm diameter
P300...........195/70 14" = 629mm -14mm
Silhouette....195/50 15" = 576mm -67mm
Jalpa...........205/55 16" = 632mm -11mm

The Silhouette has a chunky spacer (perhaps 50mm) between the top mount and the wheelarch plate, presumbaly to correct the reduced ride height. I think this necessitated the use of the different steering arms on the Silhouette. The Jalpa had a fabricated steel plate between the top mount and the wheelarch plate. There were two heights, I think the the deeper one was probably used for the Jalpas with the Silhouette spring and steering arm and the shallower one with the Urraco spring. No matter. The difference in diameter between 632mm and 576mm is 56 mm or 2" which would give 1" difference in ride height at the front. What happened to the ride height of the Jalpa when the Bravos were fitted?

Rear
P250...........205/70 14" = 645mm diameter
P300...........205/70 14" = 645mm
Silhouette....285/40 15" = 609mm
Jalpa...........225/50 16" = 631mm

The Silhouette also has a spacer between the top mount and the top of the strut tower (perhaps 25mm) but the Jalpa has no spacer. The difference in diameter between 631mm and 609 is 22mm mm or say 1" which would give 1/2" difference in ride height at the rear.

And then there is the final drive ratio

P250..........4.25
P300..........4.25
Silhouette...4.00
Jalpa..........4.25 (? not sure)

Since the Urraco and Jalpa share similar rear tyre diameter I would imagine that the final drive ratios would both be 4.25. Can anyone confirm this? The Silhouette needed a different ratio to compensate for the smaller diameter tyres. So what happens when Bravos are fitted to a Jalpa?

Hmmm....

 

I have only seen one such period poster. Published in Australia, she was lying on the bonnet of a well known Silhouette, tanned, blonde and completely naked!

 

Early and late Jalpa had different springs, I will post some photo.

 

Perhaps you are referring to the front springs. I believe that the first 60 Jalpas had the same front springs as the Silhouette and thereafter they switched to Urraco springs. Any other information would be appreciated.

 

FYI here is a pic of the spacer on the front of the Silhouette. The bolts on the prototype top mounts need trimming!
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what ive documented over the years

early P250 R&T March 73 :
1st-2.69
2nd-2.10
3rd-1.56
4th-1.18
5th-0.90
FD 4.25

P111 R&T 76 :
1st-2.69
2nd-2.10
3rd-1.56
4th-1.18
5th-0.90
FD 4.03

silhouette R&T aug 76 :
1st-2.93
2nd-2.10
3rd-1.56
4th-1.18
5th-0.87
FD 4.00

jalpa R&T nov 82 , (same as above maybe incorrect?)
1st-2.93
2nd-2.10
3rd-1.56
4th-1.18
5th-0.87
FD 4.00

jalpa Car & Driver, june 86 Motor june 83, Autocar nov 86 :
1st-2.80
2nd-2.11
3rd-1.48
4th-1.19
5th-0.87
FD 4.00

of course you cant believe everything you read but i reckon these numbers were
supplied from the factory rather than taken apart and measured.

interesting note, the P111 with the weakest motor outside of a P200 and high
weight has the longest combine 1st gear ratio 10.84:1

has anyone out there got a different FD and gearbox ratio?

 

Yes I have seen these published ratios as well.

 

If anyone is intrested, I know a nice Red/Tan one for sale out of a Private collection here in the States..owner is wanting $50,000.00 for it

 

Raymond QV has the many differences between early and late Jalpas posted on his site jalpa.ch

There are more than you would think.

 

Do you have any history on 40102? Please advise.

 

looks like the interior color has changed when it was repainted red? didnt it used to a dark strips?

 

The seats look original to me with the seat stripe and seat surround matching the door cards. I am less sure about the dashboard. The spoiler has the correct black painted section these days.

 

Additional info on the car:

- 1979 owned by J.B., PA, USA. Color: Argento luna
- 1994-2011 owned by J.B, CO, USA. Color: Repaint in Red again with original tan leather/cloth interior.
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I do not think so but I will check when I get a chance in mid week.