Hi Henry (and fellow scions),
There is a right way to do a restoration. It is whatever _you_ are
comfortable with. If you wish to produce a true concours winner, however,
you must get a copy of the judging rules for your particular car. The
only other substitute for the judging rule book is actual experience and
most importantly, documentation.
If I read your message right, you have a TR3. Both TRA and VTR have
concours judging manuals that document a lot of details about the car.
However, even with all the documentation, there is still some ambiguity
about certain details. At any rate, if you are even partially serious
about a concours restoration, you need to contact those groups.
Of course there is also the avenue of joining a local club and sharing
your questions with local enthusiasts. This has two benfits: sharing
other folks' experiences with their restoration projects and better still
meeting some nice folks.
You could probably hire a restoration consultant if you wanted to, but
you need to be really careful to make sure that they are giving you
accurate info. Otherwise your experience might be rather frustrating.
Opinion: concours restoration is not for the light-hearted. After you
spend a zillion hours making everything "right" the judges will probably
find several things "wrong" with your car. Some folks take this very
personally, and the experience turns them off to the auto-enthusiast
experience. This is a shame. However, if you love the car that you are
restoring, and you really like to work on the car regardless of what
judges will say to you, then go for it. But I'll warn you...a true
concours restoration is tres expensive! No?
Your e-mail address suggests that you might be located in the New England
area. If so, you might want to hookup with the New England Triumphs
group. There are a lot of TR3 enthusiasts, and a wealth of information
available from them. In fact, I'm driving in a caravan with 11 other
Triumphs to Ashville, NC starting this Sat. as a New England Triumphs
event. At least three of the cars are TR3's. If you need more info about
NET, give me a shout.
regards,
rml
p.s. Look out Ashville, here we come!
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