I noticed the talk about `originality' and dated parts, and thought that
fellow `listers' might be interested in the following.... At an MG Car
Club event, where a hotly contested concours was being judged, there
was a guy with a mint +++ MG, which had won many prizes and was
undoubtedly immaculate. It was also, of course - with all due respect to
its makers - far far better finished than it had been when it left
Abingdon.
A discussion then ensued where the owner insisted that his car was
totally correct because some of the clips in the engine bay were a
particular shade of dark green - and of course off-the-shelf
replacements were nowadays black. He took great pride in the
`correctness' of his car.
This conversation was overheard by one of the men who used to work at
the factory - a friend of mine but I'll keep him anonymous - who pointed
out that when the cars were being built, there was no thought to himself
`gosh - in twenty years someone will be entering this car in concours, I
must use the correctly coloured clip', he simply reached into the box
next to the line and took out what was in there.
There could be green, black or even unpainted silver, so some cars could
even have a variety of clips. The British Car Industry had so many small
sub-contractor suppliers, with less quality control even than BL, and of
course there were frequent strikes which caused hold-ups in supply and
often a need to improvise. Some cars even had mixed colour carpets.
The moral is - take concours overkill with a pinch of salt. The only way
to know if your car is `original' is to have owned it (and known it
intimately!) since it was new - pereferably even before the dealer
mucked about with it at PDI - and few of us fall into that happy
category.
|