Ebay 02 Avantis

[plwindish]

Its not that often that 2- 2002 Avantis are for sale on Ebay at the same time. There are distinct differences in the hoods of the two cars. The Donald Kelly 2 door coupe has the gun sight reversed from the convertible. My limited knowledge of the 02-04's was that the gun sight was recessed in the 02's. A fellow member of the Avanti club I belong to has an 02 Coupe with the gun sight recessed like the convertible has. The Kelly coupe has the sight raised from the rest of the hood. Another member of our club has an 03 supercharged convertible that has a more pronounced raised gun sight, I guessing to accommodate the supercharger. Anyone know if the hood styling (gun sight raised versus recessed) was up to the person ordering the vehicle? They are special vehicles, so I guess that would not be out of the realm of possibilities.

[Gunslinger]

My understanding was the raised portion of the hood was for supercharger clearance. I'm not aware of an owner ordering a car had the option of one over the other but if I would have had the choice I would prefer a raised hood on my '02. There's a couple of reasons that car was equipped with the raised hood...the early cars were all little more than prototypes and all had various detail differences...some had the Avanti emblems chromed and some had them blacked out. Some had the recessed portion of the headlights body color and some had it blacked out. At least one had backup lights in the trunk lid as Avantis did until the Blake era.

The most likely reason? It was Mike Kelly's son and it was done to suit him. That's my take on it.