[DeTomaso] Lucas wiring

Dave McManus dave at damardirect.com
Fri Oct 17 10:30:45 EDT 2008


Are the OEM window & headlight motors Lucas ?

How about the OEM radiator fans?

IndyDave

-----Original Message-----
From: MikeLDrew at aol.com [mailto:MikeLDrew at aol.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:07 PM
To: shelbygt at cfu.net; Detomaso at realbig.com
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Lucas wiring


In a message dated 10/16/08 3 04 41, shelbygt at cfu.net writes:


> The Lucas
> wiring is probably the weakest link in the thing.
>

And the worst urban legand.

There is NO Lucas wiring in any De Tomaso car.   None.   Nada.   Zippo.

So forget that.

What there is, is ITALIAN wiring (which isn't much better), mated to a
hodge-podge of Italian, American, and British switches, senders, relays etc.

The radiator and A/C relays, for example, are by Sipea.   The horn relay is
Fiamm.   (Both are Italian).

The only Lucas-ish things on the car are the rocker switches (headlight
etc.)
and the turn signal switch.   Even that is marked with Ford stampings, since
it was taken from the Capri.   But as the Capri was a UK design (also
produced
at Ford plants in Belgium and Germany), it was filled with British stuff
from top to bottom, and it seems likely that Ford subcontracted to Lucas to
provide a version of their ubiquituous turn signal switch, which in various
forms
populated dozens of different British cars in the 60s and 70s.

So it may be fair to say that a few switches are Lucas items (or derived
from
Lucas, as it's possible the rocker switches were built in Italy; they're not
marked in any way), but the Italians get all the blame for the wiring!

Mike


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