Patina: what to preserve, what to re-do?

I agree, Kare. My viewpoint is to restore when you deem it to be necessary. Otherwise, leaving things alone (at least to me) retains the years of usage and history of such cars. Probably I have a skewd opinion because I have never been to nor too keen to go to those shows. w/ smiles Jimmy

 

Making no judgements either way, just curious to know how many here are willing to pay a restoration shop to do what has been described as "yesterday's" quality?. What exactly IS that by the way? Who decides how many ripples / imperfections one should leave in the body to be "correct"?, how many wrikles in the seats should there be to be correct?, just how "dull" should everything look to be correct? That would be a very interesting discussion at a Concours, let's now decide the winner based on how BAD each car is!.......... Regards, Mike Regalia

 

Moi

I paid Pininfarina to do 1000 hours of restoration to Dino Competizione to make her exactly as she was on the the day she left the factory that made her.

I'm very happy with the result.
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Hi Jim, With all due respect, you have a very unique car and a very unique circumstance. I sincerely congratulate and applaud your efforts to preserve her as she was originally built! You are in the enviable position of knowing fairly well what that original build quality was. However, if she was in far worse condition, and you had to start over, I wonder to what standards you would aspire to then? How could you know exactly what she was(other than photos) originally? How nice would you want her body, paint, upholstery, plating, details, to be then? How would you determine how "imperfect" she was originally? Were imperfect bodies designed that way?(not likely) or was it in the execution? If it's in the execution, then will all cars be executed in the same manner? Were Ferrari's built with a "dull" look? and if so, how "dull"? How would you advise your restorer as to how "imperfect" you want the car to be? I would make the case that restoration standards should be to as NEW for show cars, and to whatever standards each individual owner feels comfortable with for his particular useage. I am currently preserving an 8,455mi 330GTC that is just to nice to completely redo, imperfections and all! Regards, Mike Regalia

 

There are a lot of things one knows. Firstly from having been in the pits on the day I know what Le Mans Comp Cars looked like and they never looked like many sitting on the lawn today.

From having owned a 275 GTB on the Day I also know what they looked like and they were much cruder than many are today as well.

One thing I know for sure. In the day you tightened the screws until they were tight not until the heads lined up...

 

One point. There are some very talented restoration shops out there and in the end they make their customers happy. Mike's restoration of Steve's car was very beautiful and had a lot to do with the price it traded at. That car looked wonderful.

As I'm really not in the system I warn that following the way I restore cars may not get you "Best In Show".

 

This year's PB best of show was a prime example of your point. The car was finished like a concert Bösendorfer.

 

Has any of our F chatters actually seen the reflection of an original 1930's rubbed nitrocellulose laquer paint job? Have any of you actually done such a paint job? I can tell you the reflection is absolutely the same as today. In fact if I painted one fender in nitro and one in todays urethane, and then color sanded and rubbed each, the reflection would be the same. As sprayed the laquer would be duller but not after polishing. There seems to be this underlying current expressed here about the lower quality of cars done yesteryear, and that somehow those cars being restored today are all over done. The original build quality, fit and finish on even certain pre-war cars including this years Pebble Beach winner was extremely high. It is one of the reasons that early cars such as Bugatti, Duesenberg, Hispano Suiza, Packard and all the other really desireable cars ARE desireable. Bugatti actually trained their apprentices hand skills by having them first learn how to "finish" the surfaces of many of the components on their cars. The nickel steele front axles were actually sanded smooth and finished in a satin finish. The engines were all hand "scrapped" with a definitive pattern that resembles engine turning. All the fasteners were made and finished special. They left no surface unfinished, THE DETAIL WAS AMAZING. When restoring the 1931 type 51 Dubos Coupe while at the Nethercutt Collection, we spent approximately 3 months just on the engine scrapping alone, and a combined total of almost 14,000 man hours(that's right) to complete the car. Not to over do it, just to do it RIGHT! I have restored many, many Ferrari's from the 50's-70's and can tell you no two have been identicle, and fit and finishes vary from car to car, even same model cars. Finding a uniform base quality by which to judge from is really a dilema, and one quality restoration shops struggle with on a daily basis. Regards, Mike

 

I read that Rolls Royce and some others, brush painted with as many as 50 coats of lacquer and hand sanded each coat, and followed with as many as 10 coats of clear. They were still painting that way into the 50's IIRC.

What I was refering earlier regarding Ferrari, is that every part of many of his cars, seems to have flat, satin or semi satin finish. Engine parts, chassis, wheels, upholstery, the body paint itself. Even the bright work seems to be somewhat dull finished in some vintage pictures. Maybe its a part of why they get prettier as they age, the years of washing and buffing shined them up, lol. So what I was trying to say, is I believe the finish was planned, not a measure of ability. Race car drivers as well as aircraft pilots need to operate in a machine that does not produce glare, and flat finishes dont reflect light or create glare. Probably the greatest ability would be to create a machine with all satin finishes that still retained great beauty. If the F-40 could be used as any example of that description, Ferrari fully succeeded. But it appears to me they started doing it 6 decades ago.

 

+1,000,000,000,000,000
THANK YOU MIKE!
Marcel Massini

 

our family owned Silver Cloud 111,has only been painted once in 44 years.we put it down to the nitrocellulose paint,my Bentley 'Flying Spur" is the same.
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hour after hour.
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Pictures do not tell the story of original quality. While I will agree that the race cars were in fact crude, by anybody's standard, Ferrari's production cars standards were much much better, especially the custom coachbuilt models. They were not painted in a satin finish, they were polished, and yes they were painted in a satin finish on much of the underside and engine compartment. As I said earlier, it is the restorers constant battle to find the fine line of execution that is in keeping with the original intent. I have found that without exception, the restorers I know respect that line and care deeply about trying to preserve the past.
Not sure what your expierience is with cars going back 6,7,8 decades, but as the past President and employee of the Nethercutt Collection for 27 years, I can tell you what ORIGINAL finishes were on cars of that vintage, and it is not as some have described it. Nickel plating came into the car world around 1913-15. It replaced polished trim parts(mostly brass) which oxidized rather rapidly. Nickel was replaced by chrome in the late 20's, 28-29ish as a further upgrade in less maintenence. The high end cars which I described in my earlier post all had hand rubbed nitrocellulose laquer paint work that was of exceptional quality. To say that this is something new to the car world is simply not true. In fact almost all the metalwork at that time was completely metal finished, with only slight filler used where welds occured. While your assesment of a "planned" finish may hold some merit related to the "average" mans cars being produced at that time, it simply does not when applied to great marques of the past. (Ferrari had different quality depending on customer and model of car as well). If you ever saw an original wool broadcloth or brokaid interior you would know what that quality was as well. Leather in the prewar years was actually only used(most cases) for the front drivers compartment(chauffer) especially if it was an open/town car. Reason being it could take the elements,i.e. rain, snow, etc., better than the much more expensive wool materials used for the owners/passengers compartment. In those days leather was to wool what vinyl is to leather today. When you see the cars restored at Pebble or any of the other major Concours, especially the truely high end cars(which, by the way, are usually in the winners circle), they are in fact 99% of the time restored to a level that reflects what they were new. One other little bit of history about Concours events and their evolution. They were begun in France around the early 30's, give or take a bit(at what is the golden age of automotive design), and were used by mostly the wealthy of the day to show off their new cars, mostly the cars we now covet today. Women often showed the cars and wore matching outfits to accentuate them. The Pebble Beach Concours in it's early day's (50's) was comprised with modern cars of the day along with the classics. As time has evolved and the hobby has grown, the Concours have become showcases for the cars of the past. Concours events from the very first day have been for and were about the best cars of the day, and those who could afford those cars, and it's no different today than it was in the 30's. No different than auto racing itself, both past and present, or horse racing, or the Americas Cup, or Polo, or any of the other endevores that we all would love to do, but for which only a few can pursue. I say hats off to those who care enough to raise the bar and spend the money it takes to save what past generations of talented crafstmen built. Without these patrons, we most likely would never know what beautiful creations were made in the days of truely hand craftsmanship. Regards, Mike

 

done any pre war one Silver Ghosts?
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1912 car.
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1931 PII Brewster Town car(ex film star Constance Bennitt & 1992 Pebble Beach Best of Show)
1932 PII Croyden Convertible Coupe (1st in class Pebble Beach)
1958 Silver Wraith
1963 Cloud II
1966 Phantom 6
1967 Cornice Coupe
1979 Silver Wraith II

 

few South Africans have come to Western Australia of late bringing out their cars (Rolls Royce,W.O Bentleys)

 

The point I am trying to make to all that have much to say about "over restoration" and how easily that connotation gets thrown around, is simply this, "if you do not know what original quality was in the day, then you have no factual basis for making a judgement about it now". I have stated in an earlier post about the difference between race car restorations and production car restorations, and the differences in the original build quality of each. I do not dispute your point in any way with respect to those cars, but I think it is unjust to simply dismiss the efforts of some who go to great lengths to try and preserve the past integrity of these cars as "over restored"! Regards, Mike

 

the judges at PB awarded our 500 Mondial 100 points this year. A culmination of decades of research, traveling around the world to see as many of these cars as possible, and being lucky enough to own a very unmolested example for 48 years. Every finish is correct and the paint is wavy and has some orange peel - it's what you get when you use a single-stage paint and intentionally don't rub, buff or polish it out - matching the factory's process for race cars in the 50s. Deciding what to re-do, or not re-do on a race car is tough because almost by definition, practically everything is functional and therefore critical that it work. Unless a particular finish did not match the color/type it was when it left the factory, we left it; the chrome bezels around the gauges are pitted, the dowelled nubs on the steering remain very uneven, the obvious asymmetries in the body work remain, and the prancing horse horn button in the center of the steering wheel is cracked and discolored.


and no screw heads align (at least not intentionally)

 

When this thread first appeared, my gut said, "who cares?". But the insightful comments of those such as Mike and Bryan have taken this thread to another level entirely. Thank you!