Again, perhaps this is a nod to a spartan and sporting tradition. Of my few cars of the era, none have had door pulls. An alfa guilietta had none, a DB2 had none and an mga had these door pull straps. I think the overall effect was to aspire to a car built primarily for sport, and not convenience. To me it makes sense that a sporting car would not have the same type of trim for the driver that a sedan would, but this is the era where A/C and automatic transmissions were making their way into roadsters that still aspired to have some sporting character, transforming them into more marketable cars I suppose for buyers who didn't want a pure car in the traditional sense.
When I first posted this topic question I was questioning whether the passenger grab handle on this car should even be there... I had some suspicion that someone may have taken a hardtop handle and drilled it into my passenger door trim. It seems natural to have no interior handles to me based on my experience. I initially wondered if anyone would think this subject interesting enough to respond. All this discussion about the driver's grab handles that are out there is much more interesting.
In any case, I am leaving this passenger grab handle there because it definitely sounds like it belongs.
