Over-restoration:Why?

I bought a well preserved 308 GTS. I spent many weeks doing a refresh of the interior. It was perfect. I hated to drive it. Since I travel a lot I sold my daily driver. Now I have a 2 month job local here in LA and I have been having to drive it daily from my house to LAX every day, in rush our traffic. It's been in the rain and pelted with rocks on the freeway. It has food wrappers (remember my old car Carbon?), Mc Donalds cup holders, trash and other stuff. It's dirty and I would not want it any other way now. I love to drive it!

 

So just to get this straight in my minds eye. In your opinion no ferrari should be restored? If a ferrari is dying or wearing away it should be left to do so? I well have missed the point of your post but are you saying that no ferrari should be rebuilt, given new life or no engine rebuilt? Just to let it die? Have i got this wrong?

 

There is a difference between hyper-over restoration nut and bolt redo's and maintenance to keep a car in running condition and to keep it's appearance. I think he was referring to restoration of cars to above-factory spec's and better then it left the factory

 

?

 

So were you saying something nice or bad? LOL!

 

I have absolutely no problem if a Ferrari is perfectly restored, but I also love to see these kind of totally original (and well used) cars:

http://www.symbolicmotors.com/mainpages/carpage.php?cid=1961Fer196sp-0790

 

(getting my .02¢ in so the flames can start......)

First, you must admit that the line between "restored" and "over-restored" is a pretty subjective one......where is that line?

Do I put a $3500 paint job on top of $22,000 in metalwork?
Should I leave stained/torn/worn carpets, cracked/fadedmissing leather seats after the new paint job?
Should I just steelwool the shiny bits instead of polish/rechrome?
Don't reface the instruments after you rebuild the non-working ones?
Would I really enjoy my Lusso if the engine ran poorly becasuse of not rebuilding the carburetors?
How much smoke from oil/blowby is acceptable at the concorso?
Are rusty wirewheels better than rebuilt Borrani's?
If my complete engine overhaul costs >$25,000, should I not spend $1,000 to clean and repaint the engine compartment as long as the motor is out of the car?

If you are going to do anything to your 'classic' Ferrari or other, should you do it LESS THAN as well as you can, just so you don't 'overdo' it?

It may be that the sin is not to "over-restore" the car.....but to then put it away and not drive it because you don't want to "ruin" it.
(although, it's not hard to understand how you might feel that way after spending 6 figures on restoring the car, and seeing it in typical urban traffic modes......)

Anyway, many of our classic/older Ferraris have led hard lives; not every owner spent all the time and money they might have to maintain the cars.
By the time we get them at 30-40 years of use, they have needs!

If someone can clearly define that elusive line between "over-restored" and "a nice restoration", please publish it here; it could save me a huge amount of time and money next time.......

(and FWIW, I think Mr. Nye is pissing upwind!)

Full name:
James Ferris

 

I'm with you on this one James. When your older Ferrari has needs from 40 years of abuse and neglect and you are already spending money on the necessary items to make it a functional and reliable car where do you draw the line? You won't tell the painter to leave the sanding marks on the body. You aren't going to put old pitted chrome on a new paint job. When the whole interior is out of the car and all the glass is stored in your garage you are going to replace the weatherstrips and reupholster and recarpet. You will do everything that you can afford to do while the car is disassembled. You are bringing the car back to an as new condition. The factory may not have been as careful but they were selling new cars and had to be fiscally responsible. We don't have to be today because we are doing it for ourselves. We can always justify our actions because we are doing this so we can feel good. An overrestored car will not stay that way forever. It will eventually become a driver again. Just give it time.

 

I'm currently taking apart 250 GT 2+2 3197GT, a member-of-the-family-ferrari for past 40 years. It has had its share of bad luck (engine failure, theft and a fire) but 90% of it is still untouched. I don't have a heart to replace things that are little tatty, because that would be just another step further away from originality. Take my chassis plate as an example: it looks awful but it has a story to tell - and what a story! A replacement would tell nothing and then someday the original would not be with the car anymore.

Everything that is dirty or broken will be taken out of the car. I clean things up and reinstall. Broken things are repaired and reinstalled. Things that are incorrect replacements, too far gone or scheduled to be replaced at set intervals as part of routine maintenance, will be replaced. And I can tell that the "too far gone" is pretty far in my scale (I will replace the piece of carpet that has been torn apart with a knife in search of wiring harness, for one - it is a replacement dating from 1967 after all).

As a result I believe I will have a very sympathetic car, a car that just makes people to fall in love. And I can always show people that this is the way Ferrari built cars years and years ago - not how Joe Average down the street rebuilds cars today (I must have his card somewhere)... Instead of showing what we believe is correct for this car, I will be able to show the exact items that were installed into this particular car decades ago. For me there is a significant difference.

Best wishes, Kare
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I'm in the "maintain and preserve" not "restore" camp on this. I love patina, but patina on a well running car is better.

Race cars from the 40s-80s should not be polished gems, they never were. Modern F1 cars can be because the teams are very meticulous on the preparation, several years ago this wasn't the case.

My Mondial has never been repainted, you can rub your hand along the bottom of the passenger door and feel where the paint ran a bit. That's how they came from the factory. You can see orange peel in the 308's paint job (that was one lesson I enjoyed giving to Carbon the last time he saw it). If you are going to restore it, be authentic in the work. Tony and Vito didn't hand sand between 15 coats of paint, you shouldn't either.

 

Personally I like to see owners do what ever in the hell they want. Leave a car in its original condition, or restore it to better than new condition. It's really up to the ownern to decide. Some owners buy a perfect car and then drive the hell out of it. Some of us buy old original cars, and turn them into garage queens.

 

Check out the hammer marks on the front of this Ferrari. No doubt put there by mechanics doing brutal field engineering in a desperate attempt to provide some cooling. Should this car be kept in this condition, to keep original? Or would it look better made all pretty?

regards

Ken
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I have seen old pictures of old race cars and yes they are rough. Today everyone makes them show pieces, ala spit and polish which is o.k. as these old cars are brought to a high level and look like they never have. I guess they are icons and can be brought up as an art piece and as an example of the past even if they are glossed up a bit.

 

I've seen concours judges pass over the all original car with patina (aka wear and tear) and make a bee-line for the hyper over restored Ferrari.

With that kind of influence, no wonder there is a culture move in that direction.

 

exactly my point, but you put it better.

 

You know Kalidengas, after listening to the radio today my stance and view may have changed some what due to a story in that raidio broard cast. You see the story was about an old US fire truck that was up for auction in the US and an English collector goes to America to bid for it in the auction. The fire truck was totaly untouched and original, The paint was not perfect dude to the work that he it had done during fighting fires, and the crome handels were well worn down to the copper underneath due to all the work that the hero fire men had put into it again while saving life and fighting fires ect, ect.
The English man looses the fire truck in the auction, so leaves empty handed
Anyway the truck comes back up for sale again a few years later,and the English man goes back to veiw the fire truck before he offers a bid to buy it. But the truck was not the same any more due to the paint being a brand new coat ,and the worn crome handels were now re-cromed makeing the whole fire truck as new once again. Thus wiping all the history and all the brave efforts that the fire men had put into saving lives and fighting fires wth the said truck. So the Englishman no longer wanted the fire truck anymore becourse he wanted a fire truck with history, and not this brand new truck.
So i think i can see what angle Kalidengas is comming from

 

In short, the firetruck lost it's soul.

There's a flipside, though, in at least one restoration...

0846 needed to be "over"-restored - (Piper had ****ed it up badly) - in the process, 0846 got it's soul back.

 

I have the hardest time w/ over-restored comp cars - simply because the delta between "how they were" and what you tend to see at the major shows is the biggest. The difference between the fit and finish of the production concours cars and how they came out of the gate at Modena is much smaller.

check out the 196SP Dino currently listed on Bill Noon's site. http://www.symbolicmotors.com/mainpages/carpage.php?cid=1961Fer196sp-0790
Leave it alone (other than safety items, i.e., only a crazy man would run on 45 year-old Borranis) and run it respectfully. Fangio never crashed a car, why should someone now, when there are no championship points at stake?