Kleykamp
Jedi Trainee
Offline
I, probably like many of you, frequently look at cars for sale on line. I recently read an article, in the magazine Moss sends out periodically, about this and it raised my curiousity about what I should be calling my car. Many of the cars advertised as restored are far from it, in my definition of restored. Then to muddy the waters a little more, I see on the TV auctions (mecum etc.) a reference to "driver quality restoration" for which I have never heard a definition. Then, at what point does a survivor become a restoration? How much work can you do to make the car presentable before it no longer qualifies as a survivor? I'm pretty clear on what a survivor is, but just as an example: If one piece of the cockpit capping on a TR3 had the leather pealing off, and you found a used part the same color that was in better condition, but still the same degree of patina and age...have you moved your car out of survivor status by replacing that part?
To me a restoration is a car that need nothing to be as it was when it was purchased new, but then that leads you to the term frequently used "restored to better than new". Not long ago, I saw a powder blue '60 TR3 that was "restored" to near perfection. The attention to detail included things like using only original parts rebuilt to function as new, finding bolts from parted out cars so the bolt heads would be have the correct markings...and the list goes on, but the point is that it was RESTORED. If I had my car there at the time, I could have parked it a few cars away and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference until you got close, but mine is no where near restored to that level. Yet, people would have probably referred to mine as restored too. I could go on and on but I'm interested to see what others think about this. Maybe there is some sort of standardized description of restored, which qualifies various levels that I'm just not aware of, but the term restored seems to encompass anything from a paint job to the above mentioned nut and bolt restoration.
To me a restoration is a car that need nothing to be as it was when it was purchased new, but then that leads you to the term frequently used "restored to better than new". Not long ago, I saw a powder blue '60 TR3 that was "restored" to near perfection. The attention to detail included things like using only original parts rebuilt to function as new, finding bolts from parted out cars so the bolt heads would be have the correct markings...and the list goes on, but the point is that it was RESTORED. If I had my car there at the time, I could have parked it a few cars away and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference until you got close, but mine is no where near restored to that level. Yet, people would have probably referred to mine as restored too. I could go on and on but I'm interested to see what others think about this. Maybe there is some sort of standardized description of restored, which qualifies various levels that I'm just not aware of, but the term restored seems to encompass anything from a paint job to the above mentioned nut and bolt restoration.