Wilsons Sandbox

With all due respect to our classic cars and the geniuses who designed and built them when they did, I suspect that they'd be scratching their heads over this one. They'd probably say, "If we'd had glue this good, of course we'd have used it, but we never thought these cars would be around for fifty years anyway!" Today, they too might be using unibody construction and vinyl seats instead of hand-rolling fenders, et al, and structural foam would be used to built the tub frame, molded in one piece. Fortunately, they couldn't and didn't, but preserving their cars is a different issue than restoring them with slavish attention to the limited palette of materials and design practices of the times which was well-salted by economics, readily available materials and expediency.

Original growth timber is no longer available to built houses or furniture, but I would suggest that engineering technology has moved ahead to compensate. I'm not about to use asbestos brake linings, rubber tires or Rexine, either. I have no argument with flex, but it should distributed, not confined to the joints.

As the late Al Capp (Lil Abner's creator) said years ago (paraphrasing) in a cartoon unmistakably depicting an MG, "It's easy to follow a British car... you just follow the little pieces dropped along the road. But every piece is made with the finest English workmanship". I think the idea is to keep them inside the car.

Austin