Shane F. Ingate wrote:
[snip]
I agree with Andy Mace; my approach would be to clean it up and leave
it in as much original condition as possible. As Andy said, a 35-year
patina is most beautiful and takes a long time to achieve. Even if
I were to enter the car in a concourse, this is still the route I
would take; I see way too many over-cleaned over-polished over-perfect
trailer queens that will probably never again be driven the way they
were designed for. At any show, the car that gets my vote are the
*original* cars, not the $25K restorations that bear little
resemblance to the cars that left the factory.
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Well, shoot, I just gotta jump into this thread since I just finished
restoring my Mk I Spitfire. To some degree I agree with Shane and Andy re:
preserving an older LBC that is "already in pretty good shape" - I too would
rather see it stay as original as possible simply because such vehicles are
rare and really kind of neat when you think about all the world events that
were happening about the time it rolled off the assembly line. There is a
point, however, where the car is bad enough that only a full makeover will
make it worth anything or fun to drive.
I'll admit that I was pretty zealous about highly polishing some of the
items under the bonnet on my Spit that would never have come out of the
factory that way (coil housing, heater control valve, rad. hose connection,
intake manifold, SU carbs, etc.) but this does not make it a trailer queen,
nor does the Ford "Hot Red" paint that I used instead of the original
Wedgewood Blue (which the DPO covered in Refrigerator White). I drive my
Spit with vigor and would have no second thought about driving it to a
Triumphest within "reasonable" driving distance (based upon my middle aged
butt, this distance grows shorter every year as my backside becomes more
sensitive to the ox cart ride qualities of LBCs in general). So,
"overcleaned and overpolished" by itself isn't the problem - not driving the
little beasts is the problem.
Ross D. Vincenti
64 Spitfire 4
64 Porchse 356C Coupe
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