Dave:
Very well put. I just wanted to 'second' what you wrote. I appreciate
the Tigers that have been kept (or restored to) original, and I like the
modifieds too--especially seeing them side by each at a car show. Since
the P.O. modified the heck out of my Tiger some 30-odd years ago,
originality is, of necessity, somewhat less of a concern for me (and the
safety issues of a failing brake light switch DO concern me a bit).
Right now, scraping the money together to keep it running is enough of a
challenge--converting it back to stock is not only cost prohibitive for
me, I'd lose the particular character of the car along the way. It's not
stock, but at last I own a Tiger. It's mine, mine I tell you! Ahem--sorry.
So I hang on to posts like Theo's and Steves--and hopefully I can
remember where I put them when I need them (grin).
Oh, by the way, the writer Burt Levy once wrote the following for what
was British Car Magazine: "Character in a motor car is made up largely
of its warts, flaws, excesses and shortcomings. Seamless perfection can
be pretty damn boring."
By that criteria, it seems to me that ALL Tigers, stock or modified,
have bags of character.
Best Regards
David Sosna
Dave Munroe wrote:
>
>Obviously, concours examples are valuable and desirable components of
>any marque community, but there just aren't enough to go around, and
>many of the original examples have had an "interesting" and full life on
>the road and track, and in the process are modified in many cases beyond
>reasonable hope of ever being restored to concours condition. Its great,
>really, because they provide the rest of us with the opportunity to
>drive these fabulous old cars in the manner in which they were intended,
>rather than locked up in a hermetically sealed and air conditioned
>capsule for the ultimate preservation of history.
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