i was reading a few threads from the last few years and i had a few thoughts about restored/over restored cars. what is over restoration ? from what i read its putting the car back to a better condition than it came out of the factory is this a bad thing though ? according to an article by the late, great LJK Setright most uk miura (and probably other lamborghini) owners took their cars to hooper or radford for an interior refit almost as soon as they bought them - its therefore not much of a leap to assume that owners in other countries did similar. so does the miura owner facing a restoration put their car back to the crappy original interior standard with splodges of glue everywhere, a single coat of paint on some interior things that scratches when u simply look at it. do he want leather seats instead of cloth? if so is he going to try and find a thin piece of similar leather to that the factory used (but not on his "cloth" car) or is he going to put some better quality stuff in - after all if this is an SV its a $1,000,000 car in the US these days (or close) the seatbelts are now at least 35 yrs old, hmmm our owner cant find any original style so should he fit modern belts or risk the older original ones -better to play safe with the modern ones, safety is paramount after all so our man has decided to improve the interior slightly but what about the outside. these are often the cars of childhood dreams, and said dreams would often have a certain colour figuring very prominently in them. (mine were black, red, silver, purple and blue - depending on the yr of the dream and model of car etc.) is it a crime to paint the car in a different colour to original- but one we have always wanted the car in since childhood. (the resotration police would say it is) from there its only a small jump to a non original colour - besides a respray isnt much hassle if someone wanted to put it back to the original colour now is it. well the colurs now decided and cars about to be resprayed but is our intrepid owner going to do a naff job so it matches the original quality or are we going to get the job done properly and if the paints being sorted what about panel gaps etc - it would be a shame to leave those all wonky wouldnt it. hell i mean could you in all honesty take the your car to a garage and say please dont do a great job - ??? now we come to the mechanicals. firstly the engine - whilst its being rebuilt he might as well rectify a few minor details. valve stem seals, modern pistons/rings, electronic ignition they all help reliability, power, mpg, emissions etc so cant be a bad thing can they. if we are talking about a miura then splitting the sump might be an option regardless of the year etc. uprated fuel and oil pumps might be a nice idea - keeping your $1,000,000 investement nice and safe cant be negative can it now he wants to drive his car - so does he want to waste a set of the original and now unobtanium tyres on it, or does he go for a set of more modern, better gripping and freely available tyres. whilst he's looking at possibly upgrading the tyres i reckon he might want to give the suspension the once over. hmmmmmm does he upgrade to the later spec, the car could handle better and he does want to drive it. the brakes arent great, maybe the owner wont change the calipers/discs but he could fit a better pad (if available) but then maybe he will decide to fit more effective brakes overall. safety is good isnt it ? so here we go then and the car is finished. the panel fit and finish (eg paint) is slightly better than when it left the factory, it goes better too, and gives slightly better mpg and performance - its even slightly better to the environment. the owner is dead happy with it. but hang on a sec - its over restored you say ? so whats the general consensus - should someone restore their car (and thats an important point - it is their car) and use inferior materiels to what can easily be gotten for a good price (and whats found in far lesser cars these days) does he bodge the respray and get a poor finish cos thats how it came form the factory etc etc.
And then the wife wants a mirror in the sun visor, A/c to blow cold, less noise inside the car, a more comfortable seat.. This could go on and on forever. By what you are describing, the car is not over restored. Just modified to work better with better parts and technology. The owner is not going to present it as an original car. An over restored car is one that has been totally ripped apart, every panel straighted perfectly, the interior panels are made to fit together correctly with all the same fasteners..all gaps are perfect everywhere on the car and in the car. Better materials then what were available at the time are used in the complete construction of the car. The paint is like glass without a dip or ripple..etc The electrical system actually works (true sign of an over restored italian car) and it actually performes as good as it looks..that is over restored.
i meant to put something about a/c a modern system using the original controls etc - maybe some better (but hidden) ducting my description wasnt far off that though (and i covered panel gaps) i dont mean chroming everything in site and making the car a garage queen, but is it a bad thing to have it look as good as possible and with a few choice upgrades to improve the reliability, performance, etc. ok its not totally original but then that wasnt always a good thing as can be seen from period literature.
Over restoration is the elimination of all the little factory deficiencies such as and not limited to: overspray, orange-peel, runs, body waves, fit and finish. These usually happen because car companies cut corners to maximize potential profits. The goal of true restoration is to replicate how a car actually came from the factory as close as possible with the exact same defects. Some people do not like this and want to build a perfect car, the way they feel it should have come from the factory in the first place. In the case of original type parts being replaced with new parts that don't look or function the same way in order to improve a cars function it is considered "restofied" or restored-modified.
