Re: Autoweek vs.originality

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Russ Neely wrote to me off-digest that "Me thinks you need to have put a
<grin> or a big smily face on the end of that". He is probably right, although
I have never made either a habit, and am not likely to start. The written
language has been an effective communications tool for millennia, and I enjoy
stubbornly working within its limits, even if I fail more often than I would
like.

 Doug Sedon addressed Paul "i tink john's pullin' yer leg", but that was not
my intent. Still, I guess I owe an apology to Paul Mitchell at least for not
being more obvious in my remarks on the Autoweek's illustration for Keith
Martin's column on the auctioned MGA. I really had thought that on an Alfa
discussion group my reference to the "heart-shaped grill" would have been a
heads-up, and the further mention of eyebrows and split bumper would have cued
a Giulietta Spider image in the mind's eye of any reader. So, I was wrong.
Live and learn.

 I have great respect for Keith Martin's knowledge about auction market values
of collectible cars and the intrinsic and extrinsic factors which affect them,
and I was a regular reader of his Market Letters from the mid-eighties until I
let my subscription lapse at the end of 1996; but I did drop it because none
of that is of any interest to me. I read it for that fraction of content which
was about other things than market value factors, and that fraction I can get
more copiously elsewhere, undiluted.

 I don't know how long Paul Mitchell may have been lurking, but he seems to be
a relatively recent (and certainly welcome) participant on the digest,
apparently dating from June 2001. Paul Buckley had mentioned meeting him in
1996 ("He said he wasn't really hip to this digest list yet") and his
how-to-modify-a-GTV6 series in European Car has been mentioned by Craig Walker
in 1997 and by Jorge Mazlumian and Joe Cabibbo in 2000, but his in-person
debut seems to have been in the 2001 Panasport-sourcing discussion. It is good
to have him aboard, but he probably isn't familiar with the long-running, and
occasionally slightly heated, discussions of originality versus modification
which have been a constant feature here, with me very often on the
conservative end. I remember in one of those amiable arguments (with Doug and
others) I suggested that if any GTV6s last long enough to become cherished as
vintage cars we will see their owners paying premium prices to Coker Tire for
reproduction 195/60-15 Pirellis to mount on their OEM-style 6J15 wheels, while
chasing down exactly the correct shade of blue leather, and of course raising
their suspensions to the authentic trim values; I drew a parallel then to the
16" wire wheels which had been a common feature on many "improved" TC MGs in
the late forties only to be rejected by the sixties by owners who prized the
original handling more than the improved lateral grip. You don't see them any
more.

 My own low-priority GTV6 project car, if I ever get to it, will not be
totally stock mechanically (perhaps light gears in a probably
isostatic-shifted transaxle, etc) and it won't have blue upholstery, but
tires, wheels, suspension, and ride height will all be a lot closer to factory
than Paul's project car was. The things I certainly will modify are all things
he left stock - mostly cosmetic details which Alfa introduced to 'modernize'
the aging original Alfetta design, which wasn't perfect but was still a
diluted reflection of Giugiarro's original design, which did have some merit.
That is not to say one is wrong and another right (or less wrong) but it is to
say that none of us have a lock on the virginal originality argument, OR on
the improvements-are-possible argument, and YMMV still rules. Preserving
market value did not drive Paul's choice of wheels, and won't drive my choice
of trim-removal.

 My higher-priority 105/115 project cars, if they ever get done, will also be
fairly close to stock on tires, wheels, suspension, and ride-height values.
Two of them are cars I bought new, (because I found them thoroughly admirable)
and greatly enjoyed when they were fresh, and I would be very happy to have
them in that state again without any of the tradeoffs that come with many of
the popular improvements. That is not to say they will be strictly stock;
resale value or no resale value I will change things I wish to change, like
removing irrelevant badging. The Spicas may stay, but the "iniezione" badges
will certainly go; I have long had a visceral dislike for blatant
point-of-sale advertising on any object- car, clothing, refrigerator,
whatever. Personal choice.

 Much of the recent discussion of originality has centered on Spica. The
arguments are ancient and often tedious, with merit on both sides, and some of
them may be definitively settled ten or twenty years from now, but not
necessarily before. The third of my 115 project cars is an Italian-market 2000
coupe, which is different in many ways from my US-market 1750 coupe, and I
will cherish the differences. It also will not be strictly stock, but I have
no intention of upgrading it to a Spica system. Alfa Romeo's decision to limit
the Spica system to upmarket-Montreals and regulation-constrained US cars may
have reflected production-capacity limits, may have reflected cost, may have
reflected any number of other factors but it is indisputable that they stayed
with Webers, Dellortos and Solexes for most of their cars and most of their
markets until electronic injection swept the board. And I have not heard of
any European, Australian or Asian Alfa owners going to great lengths to
improve their carbureted Alfas with American Spica systems.

 My views on originality issues are my own, and many people may disagree with
them. Not just in cars but in all things- furniture, houses, clothing, cats- I
generally believe in a broad extension of William Morris' suggestion that one
have nothing which you do not believe to be either useful or beautiful.
Ideally, of course, both. For me the 'beautiful' part involves fidelity to
either an admirable original intent or to a mature evolution of the original
concept, and it generally rejects major anachronism while accepting some
selection among roughly contemporary variables. That involves debatable
judgment-calls; I would accept 1969 buttress-seats in a 1971 hanging-pedal GT
Veloce (YMMV) but I would not want five-star Daytonas or even Turbinas (or
Spica injection) on a Giulia Super or a Duetto, let alone a Giulietta, any
more than I would put a Formica top on a Stickley table. Once more, YMMV.

 Enough yammering. I'm sorry my deadpan comment on Autoweek's mistake fooled
Mitchell, and trust he will understand and forgive.

 John H.

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