The AACA (which I believe is the oldest car club to do concours judging)
has wrestled with this for years.
The standard is supposed to be how the car looked when it came off the
assembly line. Yet it frequently happens that cars better than this
standard, i.e. over restored, will take the top awards.
I recall a very interesting meet where an unrestored and very well
preserved car with original paint had a giant paint run on the firewall
as delivered. The point under debate was whether the car was to be
downgraded due to this run which was on it when it came off the line.
I guess my feeling is that the ultimate purpose of judging is to
preserve the cars in close to original condition (not hot-rodded or
modified) and if a car's cosmetics are somewhat more perfect than
originally done, that's okay. Obviously over restored cars, with chrome
where not applicable for example, should not rate higher than an
authentic restoration. The fact that the paint may be far shinier and
more perfect than the original paint does not in my mind constitute over
restoration.
To define "perfect", one has to also define the standard against which
perfect is going to be judged.
It's easy to get too anal about all this judging stuff. How many cheap
trophies does one want to accumulate?
MWood24020@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 12/14/98 10:31:52 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> TSmit@novatel.ca writes:
>
> << In a concours event, some feel that they have no chance against someone who
> brings out a factory special, such as one of the Le Mans cars or one of the
> AF
> prototypes. Is it not reasonable to have these cars compete in a class for
> (to
> use the term from Norm's book) "cars receiving special factory attention"? >>
> My understanding of concours judging (very limited, I'm not too into "static
> display") is that the car should be judged according to the state of
> originality, restoration and presentation. Now, this doesn't seem to hold true
> in certain arenas, such as Pebble, where cars which are over-restored (chrome
> where never chromed, polished where never polished etc.) may hold the upper
> hand. Regardless, a very close to perfect, otherwise average MkI should be
> able to compete, on points, with any other Tiger ever made.
> Mike
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