When is it not "Original" ?

[NWYENKO]

Approximately 25 years ago the previous owner of our car pulled the motor and "detailed" under the hood. In the process he painted the firewall, to include the booster and master cylinder. He also painted the portion of the fender above the wheelwell which is supposed to be body color. The undercarrage was painted and the tail panel painted black. I have corrected the tail panel and booster but do not know whether to try to fix the other stuff. If I did, am i now "restoring" the car? It looks really good as it is and is very clean. The majority of the car is original paint which is getting a little thin. Just interested in thoughts, thanks, Jim

[Edited by NWYENKO (12-28-2001 at 10:42 AM).]

[bkhpah]

Jim,
I can see no reason what so ever in correcting what has been defaced. If you are knowlegable as to the way it was done from new, you can duplicate the original finishes very close. I would have to say this is restoration, but geared more towards restification. Only those items that have been tampered with are going to be corrected. The main body, interior, glass, chrome etc would not be affected from doing this. Most cars in there time have had some degree of restoration, in your case it would be a smaller amount. You would be using almost the entire car over again, not replacing factory installed parts. This is just one option. My take only...BKH

[Rat_Pack]

I agree with Brian, what was already done by a previous owner in most terms is restored. Now the part on the fender was it repainted body color or black as most people do in a hurry? If it is painted black then more than likely you can take some 0000 bronze wool and mineral spirits or a fast evaporating lacquer thinner and remove it down to the original color and then polish it back up. If that area is body color then I would probably leave it alone. These areas can never really be called original again but if you tell people up front what has been done then they are more likely to accept it.

That is what a guy on this board did this summer when showing me his car and it did not mean a hill of beans to me that it had been done. Most of the car was still original..........RatPack..............

[Stefano]

The difficulty is with how the term 'restore' or 'restoration' is defined and used. These terms (I'm gulity) are over used, all to often. Just because work has been done to a car doesn't justify the use of the term restore.

Simply, Restore; would mean to bring back to original condition or position.

The painting of the firewall and chassis is a restoration only "technically" if it was brought back to original condition, same color, texture, line markings, ect. as when it left the factory.

The prior owners painting of the fenders is not restoration (this would be a modification). You cleaning it up as to how it was when it left the factory is technically restoration.

Many cars are Restified,Modified,Repaired and even Over Restored (used to define better than original condition), but very few are correctly restored.

Just some of my opinions on the topic.

[Rat_Pack]

Bob, same delimma here with my car. Pretty much unrestored has had one repaint over the original paint in 1982. The paint is starting to look rough on horizontal surfaces (lacquer paint) but still shines on the sides and in the jambs. Carpet is fading, a few cracks in the upholstery but otherwise nothing bad. Engine bay is very clean and underneath is clean but not detailed. I have owned this car for over two years and have done nothing to it except replace valve springs. I have every nut and bolt to completely do a frame off restoration but just cannot bring myself to do it. The car is almost too good to tear apart. Mine is exactly like Jim Pearse's 67 Nickey (see pictures of SCR 2001) in that it has a lot of character to it. I have only had it in public one time as a display item at our Camaro show and I never hung around it all day. I kept hearing all day "did you see that Camaro inside with the faded paint, it looks unrestored".

There is one drawback to doing a repaint on the car now: you will have to restore everything on the exterior including undercarriage and engine. No matter how good it looks now it will look worse once there is new paint on the car. All of the chrome will show signs of aging and will have to be replaced. A guy here locally bought a 69 Z-28 with 50k miles on it with supposedly original paint. Car was a very nice car needing detailing only. He decided to repaint the car as there were a couple of scratches in the paint. Well now the car looks good but the red paint went everywhere. Because he did not tear the car apart to paint it, the car actually looks worse now than it did before. His engine compartment looks like crap as does the undercarriage. This has made me decide to hold of on a repaint until I have time to tear it apart and do it right.

Bob enjoy your car as it is; because it has character. You can see completely restored cars all day long, not too many like yours left around to look at.............RatPack...............

[MadMike]

I'd say it's original.

Come on. If you kick up some tar on the road and get the underside of your car dirty - and you wash it - is it still original? You mighta washed some of the undercoating off!!!!! or even some inspection marks or identification tags (shock/horrors).

If the brakes wear out - you replace the pads. Is it original? Restored? Fixed? Ruined? Maintained?

So someone sprayed paint all over the inside of the engine bay. It's original and it's "messed up". So what. If you want, you can fix it. It's still original.

If you rebuild the engine or repaint the car, it's restored. IMO.

[Bob Jenkins]

This topic brings up some of my questions on what to do with my car. Granted it is not a supercar but a 1969 Camaro SS 396/375 hp car. The car is fathom green with midnight green vinyl top and medium green standard interior. It has 72,000 original miles with most of the original paint with some minor repainting done around 1974 sprayed over the top of the original paint. The interior is original but some fading. The car is in decent shape but could use a repaint to be nicer. I kind of like it the way it is as it has not been touched in a long time. Sometimes I wish it were in worse shape so I could justify painting it. At what point do you decide to restore or leave it as is? This has been bothering me for a while.....thanks for you inputs and I really enjoy this site! Great info and very knowledgeable folks. Maybe I'll make it to the Supercar Reunion this year.

http://temp.corvetteforum.net/c3/1970corvette//view.jpg

[Edited by Bob Jenkins (01-17-2002 at 07:41 AM).]