re-shelling versus restoring

[readie]

I would be intersted to hear peoples comments, I entered into a discussion at the weekend with a friend of mine.

He had a classic car which he had just had restored and he decided rather than restore the panels and frame of the car, he would reshell. The thought process being that there was so much work required on the bodywork and chassis that the 'original' car would practically not exisit anyway and so a reshell would not take away from the origainllity.

Needless to say he has suggested that I do the same as I have a lot of work which needs doing on my csl.

Now, I do not agree with him as I think that even if there is only a little of the 'old' car left, it is still there. Particularly with a csl given the fact the car was made of thinner steel , but he was arguing, after all these years really only the roof is left as thinner steel because all the other panels will have been replaced long ago. so whats stopping me ?

Needless to say we reached a impasse.

Arbitration comments from the forum ........

 

[classicman]

This is something that I have been struggling with for a while as well, as I am in the same situation as you. The problem is compounded by the scarcity and price of genuine csl parts. My thought process at the moment is rather to restore as much of the original car as possible even if it means having some non-original parts, as opposed to a non-original shell. I think this will preserve most of its authenticity and value.

There are some parts that have just been advertised on the forum which I would love, but I just cannot afford. Especially as I have to covert by 8,5:1 because of the weakness of our currency, plus pay shipping to South Africa, which is expensive.

In saying his though, I am buying a replacement csl roof from Europe as I consider this as essential.