[alfa] Brits and Class/Restorations

["calvin crouch" <calvincrouch@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Hertzman, in his posting, brings up a very important fact about
restorations.  They are restored better then they were from the
beginning.  Hence the current problem of over restoration on the
clasic/show circuit.  He also speaks of the owners and restores who don't
"know" how to restore a car to it's original condition  ie flaws.

A couple of years ago AONE arranged with Paul Russell  to open up his
shop and give the Alfa club a behind the scenes tour.  Besides the
absolutey beautiful and rare cars  all over the place to be admired, was
degree to whichthey pursued the stated goal of restoring the cars to
their original condition, not the new over restorations for
perfection, which are everywhere.

The dedication of his personnel to this ideal was apparent when I visited
with the body man, an italian artisan, who was working on the stripped
250GTO of Ralph Lauren.  He mentioned and pointed out all the flaws in
the original bodywork. This was supported by the reams of documentation
and photographs of the car back when.  He stated that these were the
result of it originally  being  hammered out by the equivalent of
vocational students then worked over by the craftsmen before the finall
bondoing .  He pointed out  that if you look down each of the flanks of
the car you'll find they are not the same because they were fabricated by
different people.  He found that the most difficult part of his job was
not the actual panel work but to keep himself in check and NOT to make it
better then it was originally, even though he could easily. He was at
that time working on the removable covers for air intakes on the hood. 
He mentioned he was fabricating the covers so that the "shut lines"
around the covers and body would not be perfect all the way around
because they never were. Comittment to originality not to
perfection.       Cal

 

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