When I decided to restore my BT7, I decided to go "original". The first ten
or 12 years I had the car, I drove it, unrestored, as a slightly rough but
respectable looking "driver". --The carpets smelled of old wool when hot, the
turn buttons were all loose and "jingley" --I looked at the car, and tried to
imagine the British auto workers who had been assembling and painting my car,
so far away, back on my 8th birthday. I could see them rubbing down the paint,
and turning all of the nuts bolts and screws.
Since then, I have completely restored the car, from top to bottom, bumper to
bumper. --And at some point hereafter, I started looking at the car and
wondering what I was seeing that was in fact, truly "original" --Was there
anything I could look at that the original line workers had also looked at?
Hubs? -Replaced. All painted parts - Painted. --Upholstery? --New.
Carpets? -New Steering wheel? -New Chrome bits? --all re-plated.
Hardware? --All newly cad plated. ---AH ! --The carburetors and dashpots
!!! --Except I had had to retrofit the entire tricarb setup to the car, to
replace the dual HD8's that had been put on at some point.... so while the
factory workers had actually looked at these carbs, --it was not to install
them on THIS car !!!! --All of the electrical box covers had been removed
and plated. All of the anodized bits were buffed and re-anodized, including
the grille teeth.
It became an interesting mental exercise to try to find things that showed the
"original car"
So far, the only things I have come up with that I can look at that are
surfaces that the worker at the factory may have seen are:
The glass, needles and the faces of the gauges
The threads inside the holes for the spark plugs
The fiber board backing on the overdrive relay
The bare front shock bodies
The Trafficator housing. (horn button and trim ring were replaced)
Marker light lenses
The car looks like a million, --but I don't see those unnamed Brit line
workers as much when I look at her these days. More often I see the hundreds
of hours of restoration I did. It's a little sad, in a way, -I miss those
guys.
David W. Jones
'62 Mk II BT7 tricarb
Cumberland, RI USA
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