Book Review: The Stewardship of Historically Important Automobiles

My main area of interest, at this point, is aircraft, as a Contributing Editor of Aviation History and Air & Space Smithsonian magazines. (I also put in my time as a car guy as a former Editor of Car and Driver and as the author of “The Gold-Plated Porsche.”) So I bought this book to see if it applied to the world of aircraft restoration. It indeed does, and in most cases in its text, you could simply replace the word “automobile” with “aircraft.”

Unfortunately, the world of aviation routinely exceeds the bounds of the most blatant automotive over-restoration, except for the work of a very few museums, most notably the National Air & Space Museum’s workshops. There is a pervasive feeling that a historic aircraft must be flown, so the public can appreciate the sound and smell and sight of such an airplane at air shows. This, of course, requires major rebuilding purely for safety and licensing requirements.

It’s also amazing to me how casually the validity of the “data-plate restoration” is accepted in the airplane world, particularly among what are casually called warbirds. If you own nothing but the original data plate from an airplane, perhaps retrieved from a Pacific jungle or a Russian bog, it is absolutely permissible to construct an entirely new airplane around it. A number of companies manufacture the most complex components of particularly popular warbirds, notably the Spitfire and the P-51, and the rest of reconstruction is relatively simple metalwork–a framework of ribs and spars, bulkheads and longerons, skinned with riveted sheets of flat aluminum. (Aircraft have few compound curves.)

Equally disturbing is the increasing habit among the wealthiest collectors to take a basic aircraft and rebuild it as an exotic variant of that airframe, much like taking an ordinary production roadgoing Ferrari and “restoring” it as a rare racing Ferrari. I recently wrote about an American collector who is currently having two airplanes “restored” for him at a German shop: one is a two-seat Italian World War II Fiat trainer that he is having rebuilt as the far more rare single-seat, up-engined fighter version of that airplane. The other is a Messerschmitt 109 built AFTER the war by a Spanish company, under license, with a widely available Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. It is being “restored” a a proper Bf-109 with a Daimler-Benz engine.

So read this book and heed its advice. Otherwise, the historic-automobile world will, like the historic-aircraft arena, find itself without a single true, representative example of its craft outside of a very few foresighted museums.

The sheer beauty of Mr Furman’s photography is worth the purchase price alone.
This assumes you have some understanding of value.

I must reply to Mr. James’ comments.

It is clear that you did not read the book, but instead are reacting to the review. If you read the book, you would know that the philosophy presented in Stewardship is intended to apply to a very limited number of truly significant cars. Dr. (not Mr.) Simeone’s point of view grew out of his medical training whose first tenet is “do no harm.” Once something has been altered or restored, it can never return to original. As such, it has lost something that can never be regained.

Stewardship presents its argument through the voices of a dozen experts from a variety of fields that encompass art, architecture, antique furniture, museums, concours and restoration. Believe it or not, there are cars that are every bit as important as anything man has ever made.

Also, if you ever have the good fortune of meeting Dr. Simeone, you will have met the most gracious and sincere gentleman who has devoted 60 years to the respectful study and appreciation of the automobile.

[quote]What should happen to your car, either while in your care or through its future owners?[/quote]
I’m planning a number of easily reversible modifications for my car to improve the usability in modern traffic. As for the next owner, I will be saving the old parts in case that person wants to return the vehicle to factory spec. American Malaise iron is worth preserving “lest we forget” the complacency that allowed foreign companies to establish themselves here.