Concours judging philosophy

[Ramjet]

I am nearing the end of a 5 year restoration to concours standard, my vehicle is a July 1959 3000, BN7.
I received it as a wreck from the U.S.
One thing that bothers me is that it was fitted with a Girling /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/driving.gif vacuum brake booster unit, every thing about the installation is spot on with the later Mk2's and later.
I have restored the unit and refitted it to the Healey and wonder how a Concours judge will react and whether points will be deducted, the rest of the Healey is pretty well as original and spot on, hopefully it will be in the State of New South Wales Master Class Concours division this year or next.

Any experience or opinion you can impart on this will be very interesting.

Thankyou, cheers, Roger Ramsay, NSW Austin Healey Owners Club. (Some 450 Healeys).

 

[Michael Oritt]

[ QUOTE ]
One thing that bothers me is that it was fitted with a Girling /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/driving.gif vacuum brake booster unit, every thing about the installation is spot on with the later Mk2's and later.
I have restored the unit and refitted it to the Healey and wonder how a Concours judge will react and whether points will be deducted

[/ QUOTE ]

Roger--

I have no knowledge of what your judging standards are. Here there are exceptions made in the standards for commonly-installed items such as seat belts, fender mirrors, fire extinguishers, etc. especially if they are proper "period" pieces. There might be some exception in your standards for safety upgrades and perhaps you could argue that, but I doubt you'll prevail. Perhaps you should find out in advance what the standard deduction will be and make a decision as to whether or not you can live with it. For example, the standard deduction here for radial tires is small enough that it does not knock an otherwise-correct car out of winning Gold, etc. etc.