[V8] Headlight replacement

[Jeremy Ward]

You are correct, sir!  When I was in Neckarsulm I meet with one of the
head designers of the V8.  He told me that they were having a bear of
a time putting this big engine w/ transmission into the vehicle. 
Normally, you would either drop it in the completed chassis form the
top, or bolt it to the subframe and set it in place from the bottom,
but they couldn't get the jigsaw puzzle to fit that way.

They ended up leaving the radiator support, bumper, headlights, et all
loose, moving them out of the way, pushing the engine in straight from
the front, and them sticking the nose back on.  This doesn't seem like
a far fetched idea today, but it was something new that they had to
come up with on the spot.  He even told me that they fell victim to a
little industrial espionage; 'visitors' from Stuttgart came for a
factory tour of the V8 production in Neckarsulm with spy cameras... 
Apparently MB was having the same problem with one of their own models
(not sure which one).

I have a bunch of cool stories from meeting with those guys, but
haven't had the time to put them all together in an article. :-(  Now
that I am about to take the next step in my career development (new
company), I don't think I will have the time to do it anytime soon. 
Please not the new email address, and wish me luck! ;-)

Cheers,

- Jeremy
http://198.107.18.114/V8Q - for a little while longer...

On 5/12/05, Buchholz, Steven <Steven.Buchholz at kla-tencor.com> wrote:
<<snip>> 
>I don't have BTDT with a lot of different cars in this
> respect, but it sure seemed like Audi spent some time designing the nose
> of the V8 for easy R&R ...
<<snip>>