Thread: Restoration?-What is a true restoration

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

But I bet there is no one who can restore a P38a or L322 or even a Disco in 50 years. All the micro-processors will have failed and no one will still produce reproductions or the software to drive them, the plastics will have all become brittle, UV damaged, cracked and fallen apart but our little 80" will still be put, put, put-ting to shows!

If gasoline is still being made!

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

If gasoline is still being made!

no problem, empty coke can, banana skin and a flux capacitor

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

If gasoline is still being made!

With minor modifications
(fuel pump diaphragm and rejetting the carburetter) it will run quite well on 100% alcohol.

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

With minor modifications
(fuel pump diaphragm and rejetting the carburetter) it will run quite well on 100% alcohol.

John

But how would you keep it in the tank and out of Diana?

I was reading about the series 1 engine was designed to run on a variety of fuels anyway.

An interesting debate this one and one that surfaces from time-to-time in car clubs and forums.

I think the definition of the words used to describe doing-up an old car are often confused with something else; for example these come from the "Concise Oxford Dictionary":
restore 1. bring back or attempt to bring back to the original state by rebuilding; repainting; repairing etc. Seems to me this is a very good descriptor of what we do to our Land-Rovers.

replica 2. a facsimile an exact copy(often used incorrectly to describe a special build e.g. HM Bark Endeavour; D-type Jaguar special)

reproduction 3. made in imitation of a certain style... Much like the castings I make for the S1 cooling system - not exact copies but close enough to work and look correct. Endeavour is really a reproduction.

original 1. existing from the beginning. As Diana pointed out (and others before her) the only cars which are original are those that left the factory and have been unmolested since then. The only examples I have ever heard of were a pair of Morris Minors in the UK in 1977; neither had been for their first oil change; one had done 150 miles since new and the other 450 miles! Even the brown paper to protect the seats from grubby sales people, was still on them! Cars such as these, if they exist anywhere, would be worth a fortune, not just in a monetary sense but as reference to would be restorers.

None of this matters much until dishonesty starts to creep into it. Cars that are described as "original condition" need to be viewed with intense suspicion; advertisements that talk about replicas are probably wrong. The owner of L48 told me that when he went to register it after its restoration, he was told that L48 already existed and was registered! Fortunately he could proves his car's provenance.

With regard to bitzers, I agree with Brian; their value is diminished and you end up wondering what it really is; which is why I go to great trouble to restore a badly rusted chassis if it means keeping the original number with the car, even though much of the chassis is no longer original. Therefore I own a restored 80", some of which is original perhaps (I can't verify what previous owners did) and most of it is not but is supposed to look like it is

I think the UK historic registration scheme is a good one, where points are allocated for major assemblies on a car e.g. chassis; engine; axles; of the right period and type gain full points when registering a restored car and count towards a period registration number being allocated etc.

As for the future of petrol, the same thought crossed my mind two years ago during the painfully slow restoration and I am quite prepared to try a charcoal-burner on a trailer to get it to the show

Cheers Charlie

Chazza, In the boom times of the late seventies through to the stock market crash of 1987, there was an amazing increase in the popularity of classic cars amongst wealthy Americans. It became very fashionable to own one or a few. Now true classics were getting a bit thin on the ground so some entrepreneurs got the idea of buying a classic chassis, say a '30's Packard V12, Pierce Arrow or Cadillac with an unlovely mass produced sedan body and sending it off to the coachbuilders to be made into something desirable with a new body. Dual cowl phaetons, town cars, and boat tail roadsters, exact replicas of the work of Le Baron, Cunningham and other famous period body builders started to appear at the auctions. Even happened to Deusenbergs with unpopular body styles.

At the other extreme, there is a respected restoration firm in Boston who are capable of undertaking an entire restoration in house including forgings and castings. They only accept vehicles they regard as worthy of restoring. They keep the riff-raff out by asking for an initial progress payment, in advance, of $100,000, stop work when this is used up and ask for more. Their reputation is that of producing 100 point, 100% accurate, restorations.

A well known American Amilcariste acquired a veteran Peugeot grand prix car and sent it to this firm for restoration. He records that he was asked did he want it restored as designed with a Grand Prix chassis or as built with a touring car chassis? Or restored with the GP chassis which was installed after the first race appearance when the GP chassis became available, or with the touring chassis with race modifications which was fitted again after the GP chassis was found inferior? He was asked if he wanted the body work as designed and first built, or with the cockpit side cut with shears and bent over with a hammer when it was found that Georges Boillot did not fit. Painstaking research and true attention to detail.