Bob et. al.,
I have mixed feelings about the "over restored" issue. I've been in the
Corvette crowd much longer than the old truck crowd (and I get my definition
of over restored from that crowd), and they carry that issue to extremes. .
.besides correct colors, it's down to correct overspray on the engines,
frames, etc. and the correct assembly marks on the firewalls, frames, etc. as
well as all the date coding and matching numbers precisely right on all the
precisely right parts. Everything has to be precisely right as it came off
the assembly line. Among other things, the price of the "correct parts" has
gone thru the roof, many of those parts more than you guys have in your whole
trucks. On a Corvette restoration, adherence to this philosophy can make a
huge difference in dollars appraised, maybe 30% of the value of the car. And
it pushes the "average guy" completely out of it. I know that this same
thinking has gotten into the Cameo crowd as Brian is doing his 57 Cameo to
this level of precision. I would also have to say that I enjoy and
appreciate the effort of the museum grade restorations, but it's not for
everybody.
Given that these trucks (and cars) were mass produced with union labor that
didn't much care about the quality and by corporations that wanted sufficient
quality to get people to buy vehicles but not one ounce more as that raises
the price, there were many compromises made to get the numbers thru the line.
I clearly remember my dad buying his new vehicles and then practically
disassembling them to fix all the things wrong with them--squeaks, rattles,
loose parts like door panels, poorly fitting glove box latches, dropped
fasteners in doors, carpet not attached or miscut, fixing paint flaws, etc.,
etc., etc. It was usually a several week detailing and repair task. Even
when I bought my 86 Silverado pickup and went back to get them to fix things
that weren't quite right, the dealer had the audacity to say that Chevy sold
their vehicles "partially assembled" and it took them a while to get things
working right. . .needless to say, I haven't been back to that dealer since.
The assembly line approach wasn't used because it was the best way to build a
vehicle; it was used because it was the best way to build vehicles for a
price that people could pay. I understand the thinking of those that would
keep it the way that it was done to preserve history and don't want to
discourage it for that reason, but I would rather have one done the way it
would be done if GM could've afforded to do each truck as a hand assembled
one-off. My dad worked for the GM Motorama show/tour in the early 50's when
it was at its peak, and that's where he got at least part of his pickiness
about everything being exactly right.
Of course none of this even addresses the restified/hot rodded crowd and is
just one more opinion in the crowd.
Mark Noakes
58/56 Suburban
Knoxville, TN
In a message dated 12/31/99 7:50:29 AM, you wrote:
<<none
of them overrestored (overrestoration is the subject of my next article for
This Old Truck, with a deadline Jan 1, and I barely started because this list
dissipates my free time). (Of courrse I'm going to say nasty things about
overrestoration.)>>
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
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