My former employer bought one of the Tanner cars. It may even have been the
Golden Beige one. An astute, wealthy businessman , he has a collection of
exotics (McLaren F1, F 40, D-Type, Lamborghinis, etc.) and a museum of exotic
fifties microcars www.microcarmuseum.com.
During my 13-year stint as curator/ restorer of his museum, I tried hard to
maintain a well-researched, genuinely historical feel to the collection: after
all, it is officially a museum with an obligation to preserve the past, not
simply a group of interesting vehicles.
I had mostly a free rein to do this, but at times it was difficult to convince
him to paint a car in a drab old fifties original colour as opposed to a
flashy metallic base-clear one. He loved the idea of putting commercial logos
(Coke, Pez) on the cars. His argument was that, besides the fact that he
liked the colour better and he was paying the piper, the people going through
his museum, with kids in tow, would prefer the flashy colours and familiar
logos as well, and would have a better and more enjoyable experience.
Fifty years later, our collective tastes have moved on, and the past has
become compressed into a series of clichis ( "fifties Greasers wore black
t-shirts with a cigarette pack in the sleeve" and "old British sports cars are
painted BRG with tan interiors and wire wheels"). This ultra-compressed
"car-knowlege" (hmm, nice beige colour- kinda like my Corvette) boils to the
surface in the intense, super-heated artificially-generated excitement of the
Barrett-Jackson auction, with your wife jabbing you in the ribs and the B-J
fluffer whispering in your ear. A split-second decision is made, and there
are high-fives all around. And the next car is already nudging the rear
bumper of your new car.
Being a forceful type A personality, Mr. Weiner would have been only too happy
to tell you where you could put your Pozidriv screws. Despite this, when
escorting guests, he delighted in telling them to what exotic lengths we went
to in order to obtain, say, a roll of original fifties French fabric for a
restoration. But in the end, this authenticity was in a sense only a
feature, or selling point, which legitimizes the museum. Not its soul.
After I left, he converted one of the museum cars into a bright orange 1,000
hp dragster. Sigh. But its a big hit, makes a lot of noise, and is enjoyed
far more by the visitors than the perfectly restored grey sleeper sedan that
is correct right down to its fifties plaid cloth fabric.
Best,
Peter
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