[TR] Bonnets, was Re: vote criterion

[bill_beecher at flash.net]

John,
The same reasons we all search out and buy the cars of our youth, whether we
owned them or only dreamed of them.  If by some stretch of the imagination
we can, by restoring these cars back to their original factory appearance
(inside and out), we can vicariously be restored to our original and rugged
good looks.   I fully appreciate your position in that you lived with these
cars for much of your life and we just got them as beaters in out youth but
they were great beaters.  I hope you realize the envious position that you
are in having had full access as you did, for me this would been my
kid-in-the-candy-factory times two dream!

When I am driving my sidescreen, I am twenty again and life is good... You
can't do that with the bonnet & boot lid up in the air (although I did have
the bonnet come fully open on a friend's MGA at full speed on I-95 one
evening!)

My vote: Keep 'em closed and let's DRIVE!!

All the best,
B

Bill Beecher
'58 TR-3A TS/30766 L (On the road in 2009!)
'59 TR-3A TS/64974 LO (in buckets, for sale... anyone?)
"A Triumph is man's best friend, it always comes when it is called...of
course, some times it is difficult to make it go"





-----Original Message-----
From: triumphs-bounces at autox.team.net
[mailto:triumphs-bounces at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of John Macartney
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 4:42 PM
To: dmericas at austin.rr.com; triumphs at autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [TR] Bonnets, was Re: vote criterion

When I see a row of highly polished cars with the bonnets and trunk lids
open, I usually walk the other way thinking about dead sharks. Seems to me
that most of the people displaying their cars want you to think that "this
is how it looked when it left the factory and haven't I done a good job?" 
Truth of the matter is that yes, they've done a brilliant job in titivating
and polishing but the finished result is diametrically opposite to how the
engine bay or boot actually looked when the car did leave the factory.
But you try and tell them otherwise.
Each to their own, of course - but why is it that everyone is striving to
re-create 'the factory look' when that factory look had a perpetual sameness
and ordinariness about it? IMHO .....

Jonmac
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