Do You Care About Factory Correct?

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

I can appreciate all original cars, but I don't really want to own one.   From guitars and bicycles, my need to modify is irresistible. 

It bothers me a lot that my cheap MTB is now modified about as far as it makes sense to. Sometimes I think about buying a modern-geometry 29" wheel dual-suspension frame so I can start building it up, then I remember that I'm too chicken to chuck any bike down a double-black-diamond trail so the added capability won't help me, and then I remember that the frame costs about as much as everything I've ever spent on this bike, so NOPE!

I appreciate the originality crowd and I like it to a point.

In reference to paint, I always want factory paint even with flaws, because 99.9% of the time its better than the garbage respray and prep work. Ive seen so many serviceable single stage jobs painted over with bad prep work and terrible 2 stage paint.

In reference to everything else, Ill never own a car that anyone really cares about originality on so Im doing whatever I want to it to make it a better car.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Keith Tanner said:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

 

No. If you're preserving a car to some arbritary specification, you're doing that for a future owner, not yourself.

What if you are the future owner you are preserving it for?

 

I have been around enough modified cars to greatly appreciate a bone stock one and would desire to keep it that way.  I'd LOVE to have an all original '83 GTI...

There's a difference between "near stock" and "all original" or "factory correct", though. Want to keep the original spirit of the car? Sure. It's why I have a near stock Miata. But it's a little more rigid than it was originally, and has better shocks and bump stops, and it has a period-correct shift knob that makes me smile. It's got all the stuff we love about the originals but some of the stuff we don't has been fixed.

I'm preserving it, sorta, for myself.  It's not factory correct though. I'd have to make it a worse car without any benefit for that to happen.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

And in 60 years they'll be some guy at a car show telling the proud owner of the Targa Newfoundland Miata  that the Martini livery stripes are 3mm to wide after which they'll be great debate on the intent of the livery, when your only intent was to win the damn race regardless what color it was painted...........................LOL

Yes and no. Like Keith was saying above, I generally want something that is either in the spirit of the original, or at least is visually in the spirit of the original. 

Not a die hard rule. Certain cars I would care a lot more about it, and there is no rhyme or reason to that. For instance, a Jag X-KE, I want it to be pretty close to the original spirit, and I wouldn't want it to be obvious if there were a ton of mods. I would want the mods to make it easier to live with. A Miata? Honestly, couldn't care less about what you'd want to do to it. Same with a 1934 Ford Pickup. 190E Cosworth? Somewhere in the middle. 

Track cars are excluded from any of this.

Most of the time, any vehicle I buy would cost more than purchase price to get back to "factory original".

I much prefer to make my vehicles as capable, comfortable, and useful to me as possible. Sometimes that's a head unit, sometimes a paint job, sometimes it takes a sawzall. 

It just doesn't feel like mine to leave everything alone. 

No, not even a little bit, but I've had customers that insisted on (externally) all OE fasteners, even on a very non-stock, big power engine build.

When I was running a maintenance department my rule was that all repairs bring the equipment to OE spec, with zero modifications. There was a very good reason for that.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Yeah, I have the same problem installing a GM engine in a Mitsubishi. GM stuff is all coarse thread and 10-13-15-18mm heads. Mitsu stuff is all fine thread and 10-12-14-17. I'm screwed :)

obsolete said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Yeah, I have the same problem installing a GM engine in a Mitsubishi. GM stuff is all coarse thread and 10-13-15-18mm heads. Mitsu stuff is all fine thread and 10-12-14-17. I'm screwed :)

That was part of the character and charm of my S40.  It was a Mitsubishi chassis built in the Netherlands with German and Swedish components.

So all chassis fasteners were JIS because CE9A, all brake hardware was DIN because that was the brakes,  all engine hardware was whatever Swedish standard because that was the only Volvo part of the car.  Knowing the automotive history made it easy to know what size fastener went where.

Tom1200 said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

And in 60 years they'll be some guy at a car show telling the proud owner of the Targa Newfoundland Miata  that the Martini livery stripes are 3mm to wide after which they'll be great debate on the intent of the livery, when your only intent was to win the damn race regardless what color it was painted...........................LOL

LOL. Do you know how much time I spent trying to determine the ideal stripe percentages to get the right look? Seriously, if you get it wrong the whole livery looks clumsy :)

More importantly, the car would take some serious restoration to get back into the "correct" form for collectors at this point!

In reply to Tom1200 :

Some guy in the early 90's was hacked at the Road America Vintage race that I had the wrong hubcaps on my Datsun Roadster  - those are truck hub caps.  

I didn't know or care .  At that point I was tired of talking about Datsun Roadsters.   

Keith Tanner said:

Tom1200 said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

And in 60 years they'll be some guy at a car show telling the proud owner of the Targa Newfoundland Miata  that the Martini livery stripes are 3mm to wide after which they'll be great debate on the intent of the livery, when your only intent was to win the damn race regardless what color it was painted...........................LOL

LOL. Do you know how much time I spent trying to determine the ideal stripe percentages to get the right look? Seriously, if you get it wrong the whole livery looks clumsy :)

More importantly, the car would take some serious restoration to get back into the "correct" form for collectors at this point!

Actually yes I do, I recalled you mentioned somewhere about the time you spent on it..............hence the remarks.

I have seen a historical race car that had changed liveries a few times sanded down to one livery in one area, then down to another livery in a different area, etc.  Neat way to show off the full history.

This was a drag car from the 50s/60s so lots of hand lettering and stuff.  Could not imagine the patience required for that.

I guess the real question regarding factory correct is do the race class rules require it or is there an advantage to be gained by the modification?

I'll take a well maintained, original car, with paint chips, faded chrome, and questionable repairs over a restored car any day. 

I don't care one bit. Especially on vintage cars where "factory correct" 100% of the time means "it doesn't drive nearly as well as it could with a few modern tweaks."

Non-driver cars for nothing but show are about as interesting to me as a dishwasher show. Yawn.  Cars are for driving. I'm far more impressed with a dirty and slightly ratty 1970s Porsche 911 commuting on the beltway every day (true story, by the way), than I am with a mint-condition, numbers-matching factory correct 911 of the same year at some sunday morning parking lot show. 

I've started to really appreciate the old original "survivor" cars.  A lot of the reason for this is the restorations that go way overboard achieving "factory" spec perfection.  Factories didn't build perfect cars with flawless paint.  And the fake "factory" chalk markings.  Well yes the factory made chalk marks, but you can't replicate them once they've worn off.  I like seeing the restored cars with all of their "factory" touches, but the survivor cars are what I really admire.

When I was in WA in the Navy there was an older couple that had their 1966 GTO that they bought when they got married and they brought it to the weekly cars shows.  It had miles, but it only every got tune ups (plugs, wires, tires, etc.) so it is and was the closest thing I will ever see to a factory GTO. 

I run a restoration shop. Factory correct is what we do. For most of the cars it gets a big "meh" from me. For Jags (e types, XK120/140/150) Big Healeys, Alfa Duettos, Sunbeam Tigers ect. Pull out a judging guide, pay attention to finishes and details, order the correct pieces and assemble.  It is very paint by numbers. I imagine restoring a Ford Model A would bore me to tears.

The less normal the cars, the more the difficulty of a correct restoration goes up and that is when they get interesting and fun. Pre-Fiat Lancias are my favorite. Aurelia b20s, Flaminias, and early Fulvias.  Ferrari 250 and 330 cars are a real challenge too. 

But the builds that I go in to work excited about are the kind where we are installing Haltech efi and a quaife transmission in a classic Alfa or electric converting an E type or a full rally build on an Abarth double bubble. 

An unmodified car is a missed opportunity.  

Glued a Molvo P1800ES on to a Miata chassis and powered the result with a Ford drivetrain.

However, the Miata bits had to remain stock Miata and the Volvo frock had to remain stock P1800ES.  So I might be a bit conflicted.

I love Phantom Rods. Give me what the factory could/should have done but didn't.

I'll cheerfully change stuff, but try to only do those things that are 'reversible' so the next owner doesn't curse my name.

Like I did to the guy who cut a radio hole in the dash of my otherwise unmodified '65 F100.

In reply to ddavidv :

That is more or less the approach I plan to take with my GT6.  It's a fairly original car (one repaint in the original color back in the late 70's or 80's) and the previous owner took great pains to keep the car pretty original (still runs points, for example). There are things I want to do to make the car more enjoyable to drive long distances, but I do want to limit changes to "reversible".  

My 1800ES, on the other hand... that is more of a mixed bag.  The car needs so much work that it'll never really be "original" again and in reality I basically saved the car from the crusher, so I have fewer concerns about making changes. In this case, mainly to the firewall in order to better accommodate a more modern HVAC system and stereo. That said, the value of these cars has increased to the point where I will make some attempt at making the changes reversible should the next owner decide they want an all original car.

My Spitfire... falls somewhere in between. Triumph made a lot of Spitfires and nobody seems to care much about keeping them original. 

Apparently not.  If I buy a car it's to drive and enjoy. If I decide to modify it I will.  I  do appreciate seeing a "factory correct " car but if you're afraid to drive it, what's the use in having it. My sister had a  2005 Mustang that she almost never drove. Afraid to scuff it up. Although when she did drive it,  you would have thought it was Mario Andretti behind the wheel.  She sold it a year or so ago for stupid money because it was "All Original" with less than 1500 miles on it. 

In the '80s I was involved in some concours correct restorations.  A few brass era cars and some late '60s B body MOPARs.  They were absolutely beautiful and if I had unlimited funds I'd like to own something like that.  However, my current hobby car money is going to race cars so factory correct isn't really a consideration. 

The true value can only be in the eye of the beholder.  That said, my 1963 Ford Falcon is quite happy with its Chevy LS engine and Corvette chassis.  My wife's Jetta can stay just the way it came . . .