As an SCCA concour judge, I will answer what cleanliness has to do with
judging. It's about attention to detail. While this case may have been
extreme it did break a tie and in some "marque" shows (MG only, Porsche
only, etc.) that is how they judge. I've judged many cars over the years
that were beautiful on the exterior and interior but when I looked
underneath some of these "garage queens" I found spider webs, dust, dirt
as well as caked on, dried grease. That's inattention to detail. If the
car is a "driver" (as our cars are) I can accept some of that but by the
same token I've seen some "drivers" in the parking lot that were nicer
than the show cars (yes, I did look underneath a few). The bottom line
is if you are restoring a car to original and plan to enter it in judged
shows, pay attention to all the details.
Bill Hunt - Off my soapbox
64 MK II - Herbytoy (destined never to be judged)
-----Original Message-----
From: type79@ix.netcom.com
[mailto:type79@ix.netcom.com]
Sent: Monday, September 20, 1999 10:19 AM
To: Charles D. Sorkin
Cc: Spridget List; MG List
Subject: Re: Car show judging
"Charles D. Sorkin" wrote:
> Dear List:
>
> No LBC content, but I wanted to share an interesting
story from a colleague
> who was showing his Ferrari this past weekend. In the
battle for best of
> show, his 1964 GTL was in competition with a Porsche
(don't know the model)
> for the fully-judged award. The cars were of
comparable quality in
> virtually every respect. No rust, flawless paint,
perfect carpets,
> spotlessly clean engine bay, etc. In order to break
the tie, the judge
> first ran his finger along the INSIDE of the rim of
the spare tire (which
> has never been used) and found that it passed a white
glove test. (How many
> LBCs have impeccably clean spares?)
>
> The next test was the killer and the tie-breaker. The
judge inspected the
> sets of original tools that came with the cars. He
examined the set of
> pliers that came standard with Ferraris and noted that
there was a tiny spot
> of grime in the joint. And thus the Porsche (which
did not have a set of
> pliers in its original equipment) won.
>
> Wow.
>
> Now that's competition.
>
Charles,
In my book, that's not competition, it's BS!
I have always been interested in and most appreciative
of originality but I have
never understood what extreme cleanliness has to do with
judging. White glove
judging is nothing more than popularity judging amongst
a chosen few.
Jay Fishbein, CT
AN-5
HAN-6
Innocenti-S
Lotus 7
etc. etc.
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