Well, if it were me I think I would do a combination of A and B on that car. I would preserve what I could and restore where needed. I would definately use the car though.Judge wrote:Question for all.
http://www.morrisminoroc.co.uk/index.ph ... highlight=
If this was your car would you,
A Preserve, but use.
B Restore
C Modify
My own 1952 car is in much worse condition than that one and will have to be restored. Unfortunately most of the bits have been replaced over the years and a lot of the originality is lost.
Interestingly though after I had finshed modifying my 4-door saloon (which I still use as transport from time to time - at least once a week), I bought my 1952 car to use as the basis for the next step of modification. I wanted to put a V8 in and have HUGE rear tyres (see plastic_orange's blue car). I thought a split-screen looked better (more period hot-rod) for this and so I bought it. Only then did I realise that the car was a lot more solid than I expected and I kind of 'fell in love' with the sidevalve engine (I did not know it was a sidevalve initially). Then I made the decision to restore the car to original spec and abandon the V8 idea which I don't regret a bit.
I have to say though that with regard to my 4-door, I bought it for around £1800 in 2001 as a restored car and it was COMPLETELY original (in terms of specification). This then gave me a 'blank sheet of paper' to work from. I wanted a quick(ish) daily driver that went and handled like a modern car. Trouble is that I went a little too far with the mods and then engine really should be down-tuned a little for daily use and the suspension softened.
My advice would be to buy a standard car that you like the look of (spit-screen/colour/type/etc) and have your goal in mind (daily driver, fast car, etc) and the options pretty much choose themselves.
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