Tuesday, March 22, 2005
The good old days!
This week amongst other things I have been building a chassis for a MK11 Vitesse, we brought the bare centre section back from the blasters yesterday ready to go on the assembly jig. Nothing unusual in that I hear you say? Well 6/7 years ago or more, in the last days of the JK empire, no it wasn't. Back in those days it wasn't unusual for me to do at least 2 or 3 chassis a month for John, indeed we were doing that many back then that we used to mark them with our own unique system and maintain a log of what was what. This output went on throughout the 90's seemingly unabated, our production log is not to hand but I remember passing the 200 mark. As the new Millenium has progressed this output has dropped to a trickle, symtomatic I fear of the tail off in the restoration of 'our' cars. This is confirmed in an alarming decrease in the sale of panelwork for all models over the same period, noticed not only by us but by others we speak to in the trade. Can it be that all the cars that are going to be restored are done? Or is it a reluctance of a new generation of classic car enthusiasts to get their hands dirty? Some say its because far to many restorable cars have been broken for spares. What do you think?
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Maybe it's a new generation of enthusiasts interested in cars from the 70s?
ReplyDeleteAnother 10 years and it will be 80s classics like Peugeot 205GTIs?
Good point Raider. Could it also be that the last lot did such a great job of restoring them that there's less work needed? Or do these things happen in phases, and it will come around again, but in lesser degrees as sadly there are less remaining cars?
ReplyDeleteI believe as many people are rebuilding cars now as ever although I do agree with the comment that a lot of restorable cars are being broken for spares. Perhaps the answer lies in the second hand spares market.... I refer specifically to ebay which, whilst reducing the market for new parts from companies such as Canley Classics also encourages people to break their "abandoned" projects as they can make far more money for the parts than they can for the complete car.
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