Somebody, doubtless with the best of intentions, made a peculiar decision not to give the owner of a DB7 Volante the responsibility or the stress of having to decide whether or not to lower the little rear ¼ windows. Heaven forbid anybody should have their own preference!
I have had a few convertibles over the years and I sometimes like to have the hood down with the side and rear ¼ windows up. I find it helps reduce the draught around the back of the head. Similarly, I sometimes like to have the hood up but with all the side glass down.
I thought it would be a doddle to just put an extra electric window switch into the system so the rear windows could be operated independently. That was until I investigated the bootful of relays! I swear I've never owned a car with as many relays, nor as many fuses - nor as many hundreds of metres of cabling! It's like driving around in an old fashioned telephone exchange.
I digress..... ! After identifying the source of the window switches (who knew it was the Ford Transit van or the rear door of a Mondeo?) I now have a perfectly original looking setup which is still as idiosyncratic as the original in a way. I envisaged that I would simply insert a switch which would lower or raise the rear ¼ windows. No, it's not that simple. It's a two-switch operation now - I have the original hood switches which select "up" or "down" and the new switch selects what it is that is to go up or down: just the hood, the hood and rear ¼ windows, or just the rear ¼ windows.
A little odd, but perfectly effective - but anyway I do now have the option to have the windows set the way I want them................... (I still can't work out the logic in the original setup)
I have had a few convertibles over the years and I sometimes like to have the hood down with the side and rear ¼ windows up. I find it helps reduce the draught around the back of the head. Similarly, I sometimes like to have the hood up but with all the side glass down.
I thought it would be a doddle to just put an extra electric window switch into the system so the rear windows could be operated independently. That was until I investigated the bootful of relays! I swear I've never owned a car with as many relays, nor as many fuses - nor as many hundreds of metres of cabling! It's like driving around in an old fashioned telephone exchange.
I digress..... ! After identifying the source of the window switches (who knew it was the Ford Transit van or the rear door of a Mondeo?) I now have a perfectly original looking setup which is still as idiosyncratic as the original in a way. I envisaged that I would simply insert a switch which would lower or raise the rear ¼ windows. No, it's not that simple. It's a two-switch operation now - I have the original hood switches which select "up" or "down" and the new switch selects what it is that is to go up or down: just the hood, the hood and rear ¼ windows, or just the rear ¼ windows.
A little odd, but perfectly effective - but anyway I do now have the option to have the windows set the way I want them................... (I still can't work out the logic in the original setup)
