I have spent hours recently trying to work out the fine details of how the original hood went together and fitted on the hood frame and rear body of my 2-seater, since I had most of the original frame, but not the hood itself. However, I did have one sidescreen with its original covering on, so I am certain that my new sidescreens will be extremely accurate!
Anyway, this got me thinking. As time goes on and more of our cars are restored, and as each owner applies more or less 'artistic license' to their handywork - especially if original pattern parts are not to hand, then the original detail of our cars becomes lost for ever.
Can anyone think of a way that we could establish a pool of worn out, unusable parts, but which are original and perfect for patterns. Ash frames are an obvious one, hoods are another, seats are another. Any ideas? Space, and access to the parts for everyone might be two big issues, but even an archive of reference photos of original parts would be invaluable and could be made available, categorized by type, on the website. Added to these, good photos of cars taken when new or in the thirties would also be invaluable, and I am trying to gather as many of these as possible to put on the website in high resolution. Even mechanical photos can be invaluable – I have come across more than one car with the brake cables wrongly routed! And under-bonnet photos showing wiring routing, etc. are always useful.
It should go without saying that when original parts are replaced on a car during restoration, every effort should be made to save the original rotten parts for patterns for someone else.
I don't think we should all be slaves to originality, and IMHO roadworthiness and road use of our cars trumps originality, but when, all other considerations being equal, there is a simple choice of getting it right or getting it wrong, then it would be good to have access to original patterns to get the job right.
Original parts for patterns
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