Subject: Re: Jay Leno's Garage Lagonda V12 Test
Two very good answers and it is a hard decision at the end of the day.
In truth it boils down to this.
Not many people can afford to restore a saloon to real top quality. OK some try to do it on their own but when you see the process it either takes many many years, or turns out not as good as expected or both.
And when it comes to selling, if it's not been done to a high professional level then it isn't going to sell for anything other than peanuts in comparison to what effort it needed to restore. And even a top professional restoration on a saloon would struggle in today’s market to return half of the restoration cost.
Restoring a car as Stephen has done has at least saved another car and kept it from the scrap man.
The bodywork can go on the shelf to wait until someone needs or wants it. We have several saloon parts awaiting the day they are needed, it costs us good money to buy and store them but one day someone will be happy we did. (Probably not us though ;o)
And remember that not many of us can afford a real team car! or a real race car with history etc. etc. So why not restore/rebuild an old wreck to whatever you personally want? People did in period so why not now?
I recently attended a concourse event and was next to a very wealthy collector with an enormous collection of cars, when, while chatting on the subject to someone else, he stated out loud, "I HATE replicas" I bit my tongue very politely and did not ask him, why then does he allow one of his companies to sell "replicas" on a regular basis? Perhaps we should all think extremely carefully on the reality and possible or PROBABLE consequences of what we are saying.
I think it is more easy and more realistic with far less likelihood of being accused of being hypocritical to just say, Let us be careful to preserve what we can, while keeping our cars and passion alive. But first and foremost let us enjoy our cars as working objects and not either rotting wrecks or static museum objects.
Julian
Julian Messent