New parts can stick out like a sore thumb in an. . . aging. . . engine compartment. Those shiny new parts might restore the function but sometimes ruin the look. Want the best of both worlds? Here are a couple tips to make new parts blend in without losing the function.

Of course, these tips are highly dependent on the goals of your project. Not everything deserves or needs restoration. In fact, the desire to keep things looking well-worn or authentic to the rest of the car can keep the whole operation from looking half-finished and more like a survivor. No one needs to know that survivor has had a heart transplant.

Don’t use new parts at all

Known good used parts can sometimes be found cheaper through a junkyard, eBay, or other resellers than new parts. If the right look matters it could be worth going through the effort of gutting a new alternator and putting all the important bits in the “seasoned” housing, yielding restored function without the look of restored parts. Win/win.

Flat clear or paint match

For items like suspension and steering, there isn’t the option to only use the good bits to make the part right again. Since almost everything new comes slathered in gloss black paint it is easy to make them blend in a bit by simply knocking the gloss off by spraying a flat clear coat over the new shiny parts. This will instantly put a bit of age on without removing any of the corrosion protection of the factory paint.

If you want to get even fancier, lay down a coat of matching paint. Most automotive paint stores can mix a custom color into an aerosol can. Take in the old part, have them mix up some paint, and before you know it that new piece will disappear—but in a good way.

Careful cleaning

One of the things that gives away where I have been and haven’t been is the clearly defined line of where I stopped cleaning. A spotless section of the car right next to 50 years of built-up road grime sticks out like a sore thumb. By cleaning only the absolutely necessary bits and areas to ensure safe and proper function it will create a less obvious fingerprint as to where repairs happened.

“Curated wear”

Call it fake patina if you want. A few carefully placed scratches, dents, or smears of oil can go a long way in transforming something brand new off the shelf and camouflaging it into the larger picture. Some Scotchbrite, steel wool, or sandpaper can take the paint off an area to match an old piece that has lost its paint after years of wear. Alternatively, a little bit of polish to brighten one spot on a dull part can accomplish a similar result. Is it slightly disingenuous? Sure. This technique can also look quite tacky if done poorly, but when done well, this is a real option for keeping the right feel to your vintage ride while also keeping it in top running condition.

Reuse hardware

Even if the part is new, the bolts and nuts don’t have to be. Shiny new hardware is a dead giveaway of where a mechanic has been to those who know where to look. Shiny new grade-5 bolt heads from the local hardware store will stick out immediately. If your old hardware can be cleaned up and reused it will hide most repairs far better. Focus on the thread with a wire wheel or thread chaser to ensure the hardware works like it should but leave the head alone for maximum sneaky factor.

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My husband and I got involved with vintage cars about six years ago with the mostly spontaneous purchase of a 1939 Ford, a Fordor Deluxe. We call it our first grandchild. The rest, as they say, is history. (Or, in my case, herstory.)

Since then, we’ve assembled an eclectic collection of 10 vehicles, from a 1930 Model A Ford to a 1994 Mazda Miata. I simply look for what appeals to me—and that I can drive. I can’t afford a top-tier show car and, although I appreciate them, they’re not my thing.

In the winter of 2018, I saw an ad for a 1924 Dodge Brothers roadster located in Gig Harbor, Washington. I saw it as an opportunity to drive an old car across the country. I bought the car and, after completing upholstery work and other incidentals that summer, I drove it from Oregon all the way back home to Illinois.

Car people, no matter their niche, are some of the nicest, friendliest, most helpful people you’ll ever meet. Many generously opened their homes to me and my traveling companion, Billy, who has old-school mechanical skills and executed numerous MacGyver fixes—several on the side of the road.

As a girl, I wasn’t allowed to take shop class in middle school, but the car community got me back in touch with some of my formative interests. I’ve taken classes in woodworking and metal forging, and I entered a welding program at the Jane Addams Resource Corporation in Chicago and am now a certified MIG welder.

After 25-plus years in higher education administration, I am now working as a metal fabricator and have become interested in encouraging our youth to look at the trades as an alternative to college.

Check out “Jody’s Travel Blog” on Facebook for more details on her 2018 cross-country drive in this Dodge and her work as an ambassador for the RPM Foundation.

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When we drive our cars, they collect signs of that use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine explores the delight found in such imperfect cars. To get all this wonder sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link. To read about everything patina online, click here. 

Everything is somewhere. That simple belief has kept treasure hunters going down through the ages, from the first people who searched for Blackbeard’s hoard to that one guy who, back in 2019, pulled a 500-year-old gold Tudor pendant out of the English mud. Everything is somewhere, waiting to be found—though Randy Carlson has come to believe that “this one found me.”’

What found Carlson at his compound out in the rural inland hills southeast of Los Angeles is a couple of tons of unrestored prewar Mercedes-Benz. If cars could talk, this one would have some tales, starting with its years as a limousine in wartime Berlin, then as the recipient of a sporty new cabriolet body by an obscure German coachbuilder, then as a traveler in the New World that took it as far west as Albuquerque, thence to a barn in Michigan, now back to California and Randy Carlson. After eight decades, the Mercedes manages to wear its years with a battered dignity perhaps only possible in a car built by the world’s oldest surviving car company. That silver star on the radiator cowl still means something, even when showing some serious patina.

***

The story begins the summer of 2021 when Carlson’s son came home with Covid. It quickly rampaged through the house right as Carlson was about to leave on his annual pilgrimage to Pebble Beach. “It’s August, I’m supposed to be in Monterey, and instead I’m stuck at home with Covid and pissed off,” he recalled. “I’m spending the whole time watching everything going on up there on the internet and also trolling Facebook pages, looking at car stuff and saying, ‘Why the f*** am I not up there playing with my friends?’”

Carlson is a familiar face in the online VW community, frequently posting VW and related content on YouTube and Instagram and running a VW ad-listing website called Oldbug.com. He describes his profession as “playing around with this stuff,” and he had no idea that he was about to be reminded that everything is somewhere, waiting to be discovered. If you look close enough.

It happened totally by chance, while he was hacking and sneezing and scanning a Facebook group for barn find cars. A fellow Facebooker named Mike Coyer in Portage, Ohio, posted some pictures of a 1934 Packard that he had just extracted from a barn in rural Michigan. Carlson posted a comment, as he still owns a ’34 Packard that has been in the family for decades. The two got to talking online, then on the phone.

“I bought a truck and then sold it to a trucking scrapyard,” explained Coyer of the series of chance encounters that instigated the affair. “The guy who bought it said he knew of some cars in a barn in Michigan.” Coyer buys and sells things, and he plays a long game. He waited 30 years for an old quarry truck to come down to a price of his liking. Naturally, he was curious, and he went to see the farm where, besides a barn full of cars, there were also more than a hundred antique tractors.

“Eventually I asked Mike if there was anything else in the barn,” said Carlson, and he replied that there was a similar vintage Rolls-Royce. Carlson asked for some photos and, upon seeing those, noticed some slivers of an old red convertible buried in the barn behind the black Rolls. Carlson asked his new internet friend about that, “and he says, ‘A Mercedes.’ And I said, ‘Tell me about that.’” Coyer sent another picture that wasn’t much more revealing. “I said, ‘Are you interested in that car?’” recalled Carlson, “and Mike said, ‘No I don’t want anything to do with a Mercedes.’ And I said, ‘Well, can you help me get it?’”

Coyer agreed to drive the few hours back to Michigan and take more pictures and a video “that was low light, you couldn’t really see it,” said Carlson. “It’s a red Mercedes convertible and supposedly from 1940, and I said, ‘I don’t care, it may be rotten from the bottom down, I’m in. What do they want for it?’”

The family was reluctant to sell at first, but with Coyer acting as an intermediary, a price was agreed upon. Carlson wired off a substantial cache of money, including a 30 percent finder’s fee, “to a guy I never met before, that I only talked to on Facebook and one phone call, for a car that wasn’t his, that was in the next state over from where he was. I wired the funds off and thought, ‘I am the biggest idiot in the world.’ I couldn’t sleep for three days.”

Coyer was an honest actor, however, exchanging money for the bill of sale—the only hitch being that nobody could find a key for the car. Then they started pulling cars out of the barn to free the Benz. Carlson was still at home recovering from Covid and anxiously awaiting texts and photos. “They pulled the Rolls out, which was actually a pretty nice-looking car. Then they get this Ford Model A out, and I get the first picture I’ve seen of the profile of the car, and I lost my mind. I’m like, ‘Gah! What did I get?’”

Carlson didn’t know the model, but he could tell the Mercedes was unique, not just from the elegant shape and exquisite trim but from the unusual rear-wheel arch. Then Coyer sent him some detail pictures including one of the coachbuilder’s placard. Carlson said, “Then I completely lost my s**t.”

***

By 1940, British bombers were already in the skies over Germany, attacking industrial targets such as aircraft factories and plants that built airplane components. Daimler-Benz was one of them, a supplier of V-12 engines to Luftwaffe fighters and bombers even as the company still built trucks and passenger cars for the domestic market. At some point that fateful year, one of the final Mercedes-Benz 320 civilian models, a Pullman limo, rolled off the line at the company’s sprawling Stuttgart plant, headed for Berlin and most likely government runabout duty.

The 320, known in Benz-speak as the W142, launched in 1937 as a ’tweener car between the company’s entry-level 170 and its “Grosser” 770 luxury models. Mercedes offered a wide range of body styles, the sexiest being the Stromlinien-Limousine, a streamliner coupe that was dubbed “a pocketbook 540K.” But the car was all flash and no bang; the initial 3208-cc flathead inline-six put out a wheezy 78 horsepower, not much for propelling a car weighing over 4000 pounds. And the power figure didn’t change much when Mercedes upped the displacement to 3405 cc in 1938, mainly to compensate for deteriorating fuel quality in the Reich. Even so, a garden-variety 320 sedan can fetch more than $100,000 on today’s market, with special body cabriolets going for over half a million.

So far, no amount of digging has turned up the story of what happened to this particular 320 after it left the factory for Berlin, or how the car survived a war that flattened much of Germany’s cities. Or, indeed, who in 1948 brought the car—likely somewhat the worse for wear—to the offices of Karosserie F. Rometsch in Berlin’s western Halensee neighborhood to be lavishly rebodied into the graceful cabriolet you see here.

The glorious irony of Randy Carlson’s chance encounter with this car is that he was already a knowledgeable fan of Rometsch, a somewhat obscure name in the rich pantheon of European bespoke coachbuilders. The firm, established by Friedrich Rometsch and his son Fritz in 1924, is best known today for producing a series of special bodies for postwar Volkswagens, including a sporty coupe and convertible based on the Beetle that was a precursor to (and perhaps an inspiration for) the later Karmann Ghia. Rometsch also built a stretched four-door Beetle that was sold to taxi companies.

One of the firm’s designers, Johannes Beeskow, was a veteran of the more well-known Erdmann & Rossi coachbuilder that in the 1930s draped spectacular teardrop bodies over Mercedes-Benzes and Rolls-Royces. Before he went on to work for Karmann in later years, Beeskow is thought to have penned the body for Carlson’s car even as Berlin lay in ruins and its population foraged for basic needs. At Rometsch, while the Soviets commenced a blockade of Berlin in 1948 that led to the Berlin Airlift, during which aircraft shuttled vital supplies to the besieged city for 13 months, the Benz’s new body took shape from hand-beaten steel and copious lead filler.

It’s hard to imagine anyone in that city living under those circumstances wanting and paying for a handmade, 1930s art deco–style coachbuilt body on a used 8-year-old Mercedes chassis. But somebody did, and they weren’t alone. Photos of the finished Mercedes as well as a rebodied Maybach in front of Rometsch’s workshop in 1948 are believed to have come from Beeskow’s personal album. (That book, according to Carlson, went to Karmann and then disappeared into the vast Volkswagen archive after Beeskow’s death in 2005. He would love to get a peek at it but figures it’s hidden away in some “Indiana Jones–like warehouse at Volkswagen.”)

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Carlson has seen a photo of a personal list kept by Beeskow of his projects, the Benz as well as the Maybach listed next to a hand-scrawled notation in German: “The last.” Perhaps, guesses Carlson, because they were the last of the one-off coachbuilt cars done in the prewar style. Years ago, Carlson visited the former site of Rometsch in Berlin—that’s how big of a fan he is. After the Karmann Ghia arrived in 1955 to wreck Rometsch’s business modifying VWs into sporty coupes, the coachbuilder turned to making ambulance bodies and the occasional modified Range Rover, then was a body repair shop before finally going under in 2000. “I had two Rometsch [VWs] in this garage at one point, and it’s literally the most obscure car you can have. They made maybe 100 cars, and with the Mercedes, I’ve now owned three of them.”

At some point in the late ’40s or early ’50s, the Mercedes made its way across the Atlantic—again, the story is unknown, but Carlson suspects it was a U.S. serviceman or possibly even a German rocket scientist who brought over the car. After the war, a coterie of the Reich’s missile men immigrated—along with their leader, Wernher von Braun—to work on rocket development at the U.S. Army’s ballistic missile range in remote White Sands, New Mexico. The fact that this car’s known owner history begins in Albuquerque is tantalizingly suggestive, as is an old business card that Carlson found in the car for a chrome shop just across the border in Mexico, where German rocket engineers used to go regularly for weekend benders.

The story really firms up when a new owner from the Midwest bought the car in the mid- or late ’50s. The car’s new custodian had relocated to New Mexico from Wisconsin, according to Coyer, and there assembled the bulk of his car collection, including both the Mercedes and the Rolls-Royce. In 1968, he decided to move his family back to the Midwest, to Michigan. All of the cars were driven except, for some reason, the Benz, Coyer says he was told. Instead, the owner widened the holes in the front fenders where the bumper brackets poke through to fit a homemade tow bar and flat-towed the Mercedes all the way, there to go into a barn and wait for Randy Carlson to grow up. And for the internet to be invented. And for Mike Coyer to come along. And for a pandemic that would unite the three for a spontaneous rescue.

After the money changed hands, Carlson was so keen to get the car that he arranged for a truck to pick it up the same day it was extracted from the barn and to haul it out to California. What you see on these pages is not that car, exactly, but the car after Carlson went to work on it. When it arrived, it was in a sad state and missing quite a few parts. The semaphores, or mechanical turn-indicating trafficators, were missing, as were the bumpers, fog lights, and door handles. Luckily, a subsequent trip by Coyer to the Michigan barn turned up a previously overlooked wooden box that contained many of the missing bits. “I had the parts air-freighted,” said Carlson, “because it’s not like you can go to AutoZone and get semaphores for a coachbuilt Mercedes.”

The doors were completely disassembled when it arrived, so he put them back together while he waited for the lube he sprayed into the cylinders to free the rings so he could lever over the 3.4-liter flathead-six. Eventually the engine seemed ready to execute combustion, and Carlson put fuel and spark to it. It fired up for likely the first time in five or six decades with a cloud of smoke and a sporty snore from its long, thin tailpipe.

Since then, Carlson has fixed the brakes, fitted new tires, rebuilt the radiator, replaced the exhaust, and done a host of other small jobs to make the car drivable, confining the cosmetic work to cleaning and waxing it and throwing blankets over its rotting upholstery. It does move under its own power, if not with a lot of alacrity, and on a short drive from his compound, it proved a stately and smooth cruiser with a lot of what the marketers used to tout as “road-hugging weight.” Unlike American cars of the same period, Mercedes had all independent suspensions in the 1930s, with swing axles in the rear supported by two pairs of coil springs. It makes for a relatively sophisticated ride, especially over rough surfaces.

And this is about all Carlson plans to do with it. “It would take the rest of my life to restore it and a crap-ton of money. While I could pull it off to some level, it wouldn’t be to the level it deserves—it wouldn’t be a Pebble-quality restoration.” Besides, he’s got a lot of other projects, including a rare Brubaker Box, an iconic VW-based kit car from the 1970s of which perhaps 28 were made, that needs a few bits to get going.

So far, the old Mercedes has given him plenty of joy in the heavily patinaed state it’s in. “The goal was to get it together, get all the pieces on it, make it run and drive, and take it places. The couple events I’ve taken it to so far, it gets a ton of attention just like this. So as far as restoration goes, what is the point?”

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When we drive our cars, they collect signs of that use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine explores the delight found in such imperfect cars. To get all this wonder sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link. To read about everything patina online, click here. 

When it comes to automotive preservation, Tim McNair is one of the best to practice the art. With more than 45 years in the business and 18 years at his company, Grand Prix Concours Preparation, few are better able than McNair to speak on the topic. When we connect with McNair, he’s in the process, fittingly, of preserving a 1924 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. It’s one of two cars McNair is preparing for Pebble Beach’s preservation class in 2023.

McNair’s first lesson for owners who want to preserve the patina of their concours-bound vehicle? Leave the job to an expert. “I can probably undo whatever they do if they really want to work on the car, but it’s easier if I get involved from the beginning.” McNair begins his process by first determining the owner’s goals for the car. “If the goal is to drive it, as in the case of this Rolls-Royce, the mechanicals are done,” he explains. “The engine won’t be rebuilt unless it’s completely spent, but it will get fresh fluids, the radiator will be cleaned, whatever it needs to make it drivable. Any kind of rubber, just consider that it’s gone and replace it. And of course, new tires.”

The dirty, robust components such as the undercarriage, suspension, and engine receive attention first, so that the detritus isn’t blown all over the rest of the car. “In the case of the Rolls, when I first saw it, it was absolutely filthy. The suspension had so much muck on it that we were literally scraping it with chisels and scrapers,” he explains. “Now we can see the nuts and bolts. Most important, we can see the grease fittings, so we can pump in fresh grease and get all the old crap out. Again, I’m not detailing. I’m cleaning. It’s an important distinction.”

Another technique McNair will employ as the situation warrants: dry-ice blasting. A device that looks like a pressure washer uses rice-sized pellets of carbon dioxide to spray parts to remove stubborn grime. When the spray hits the substrate, it removes the dirt and leaves behind a fine haze that easily wipes off. “I used dry-ice blasting on the Rolls because there was so much hard, caked-on gunk. When to use it is really a case-by-case situation.”

Once the grubby bits are clean, McNair turns to the delicate painted surfaces. “This might sound crazy, but I never wash the old cars I’m working on. Because of their vintage, I can’t put a hose on them because they’ll fill with water,” he confesses. “Instead, I’ll use quick detailers to clean the car and remove all the dirt and dust and funk.” At some point in the car’s past, someone had applied some kind of glaze to the paint to preserve it. “It might have been linseed oil,” he says. “There were streaks everywhere that I’ve tried to minimize.” The fenders were painted with a black lacquer, McNair estimates sometime back in the 1950s or 1960s. “They’re dented up and scratched and ugly as hell, but with a little bit of polish and a little bit of compound, I got them back up to a very, very shiny status. It’s pretty cool.”

With the paint cleaned, McNair turns his attention to preserving it. “That’s really the biggest thing that needs to be preserved, because generally with cars of this age, the paint comes off in big chips and flies away in a hurry. There are many different methods of sealing it. In fact, Eastwood made a product called Patina Preserver, which is a clear matte paint.” McNair uses a very targeted approach to preserving the paint. “I’m being very sympathetic. I’m not spraying large patches. If there’s a big chunk of paint that’s maybe an inch by an inch, I’ll use an airbrush to dust in a little color to give it a better uniform appearance. The essential concept to keep in mind is that we’re doing this for corrosion protection. It has nothing to do with aesthetics. It’s done for the preservation of the car.”

McNair is quick to point out what patina is and what it is not. “The difference between a preservation car and a car that should be restored is neglect,” he explains. “Some people take these cars out of barns and they have not been driven in 50 years, and they’ve been neglected. At some point, if you want to use the car again, whether you want to drive on tours or have it in your collection, you have to address neglect to bring the car back, either to a stage where it was at one time or just preserving the car through the years.”

Then there’s the phenomenon of “fake” patina. “I was working on an unrestored Ferrari, and the owner wanted to drive it on tours,” McNair recalls. “The suspension had to be completely rebuilt, but when we got back the springs and shocks from Koni, they were brand new and shiny and clean. To make them look authentic, I weathered the shock bodies to make them look older and dipped the springs in muriatic acid to promote a little light rust. When we put everything back together, it looked like it belonged in the car the whole time.”

Where did McNair learn these skills? “Easy,” he answers. “The rat-rod guys. I learned how to do these rusting and weathering processes from the guys who are faking patina on their hot rods, and they do it the best. So, why not? Also, from years of building military and other models, I learned the weathering process, tricks like that.”

With all of these patinaed cars—authentic and not—out there, how is a prospective buyer able to tell the difference? McNair’s answer might sound familiar: “Hire an expert. It’s part of due diligence. You’re spending a lot of money. Hire a restorer, someone who knows the process.” McNair uses vintage audio as an analogy. “I compare these cars to tube amplifiers. You know the difference, the audible difference, that tubes give, that warmth, right? That’s what a preservation car is. It’s warm, fuzzy, and it’s a blanket. It’s your favorite pair of socks.”

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The post A professional’s perspective on cultivating patina appeared first on Hagerty Media.

When we drive our cars, they collect signs of that use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, in which this article first appeared, explores the delight found in such imperfect cars. To get all this wonder sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link. To read about everything patina online, click here. 

Detroit knows a thing or two about patina. We’re not talking about ruins. Please. The abandoned buildings that dot the city’s 139 square miles will always infatuate national media but have little new to tell you about the place or the resilient people who live here. We’re referring instead to the passion and creativity that pushes through the cracks. This is a city where you can have the best meal of your life adjacent to an oil refinery, where grimy clubs have nurtured new musical genres. Detroiters understand that things can be better in spite and sometimes because of their imperfections.

That attitude extends to cars. Although the classic car scene here is best known for the pristine muscle machines that crowd Woodward Avenue each August, clubs have emerged in recent years that celebrate age and wear. There are differences in the cars they welcome, but no one takes the differences, or themselves, too seriously. Members include young blue-collar guys, married couples, and at least one librarian. Everyone helps each other out—a GM engineer who commutes in a 1980s Suburban (aka “Shot of Burban”) lays killer pinstriping.

We invited members from multiple clubs to hang out in Corktown, Detroit’s oldest neighborhood. It’s anchored by Michigan Central Station, the imposing Beaux-Arts building that once symbolized the city’s despair but is now owned by Ford and is nearing the end of a $740-million restoration. Consider it a massive barn find and proof that the best stuff is always worth saving.

1952 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight

Owner: Dean Beattie — Machinist
Owned since: 2017
Patina level: Cultivated Crust
Patina philosophy: “Rust is cheaper than chrome.”

The Detroit car scene means a lot to Dean Beattie—so much so that he started a podcast dedicated to it. He has been a gearhead since high school, and he has fond memories of working on Chargers and Road Runners with his friends. But life happened, and Beattie had to get rid of his muscle cars. Looking for a cheap way to get back into the hobby, he picked up his well-worn Ninety-Eight, added some personal touches like pinstriping, and joined a local car club. “I just fell in love with it because of the patina,” he explains. “Plus, it would cost a fortune to fully restore this car, with all the chrome.”

1966 GMC Series 1000

Owner: Tommy Perry — Technical writer
Owned since: 2023
Patina level: Aging like Clooney
Patina philosophy: “Every scratch and dent was earned.”

Tommy Perry used to work at a restoration shop, so he appreciates concours-level cars. But for his personal vehicles, he isn’t interested. “It’s possible to appreciate the history of a vehicle when it’s kept mostly as is.” Perry, a Mopar guy at heart, took a chance on his GMC because it had a compelling story. It was owned by farmers in Rochester, New York, who used it as the “good truck,” rather than a work truck. They sold it to Perry’s family friend, who held on to it for 32 years. “I’m lucky to be its next caretaker, hopefully for the next 30 years, too. I plan to keep it mostly stock—except maybe lowering it a few inches—and use it as our club’s push truck for our race car.”

1964 Mercury Comet

Owner: Clifton Darnell — Snap-On dealer
Owned since: 2011
Patina level: Rode hard and put away wet
Patina philosophy: “Shiny cars are cool, but driving your car is cooler.”

When you look at this rough-and-ready Comet, you probably wouldn’t guess that owner Clifton Darnell moonlights as a custom painter. “Rule of thumb is a painter never has a nicely painted car,” he quips. Yet he insists he’ll eventually get around to transforming it into a 1960s-style custom. “A lot of people tell me to leave it alone, but I want to make sure that the car is still here in a hundred years. To save it, I have to replace all the sheetmetal, do the bodywork, and paint it.” But there’s a lot of downtime that goes into paint and bodywork. So, rather than let it sit uncompleted, Darnell continues to drive and enjoy his Comet, warts and all.

1949 Cadillac Series 62

Owner: Jim & Joyce Krom — Engineer / Librarian
Owned since: 2013
Patina level: Zombie in a tux
Patina philosophy: “We have no philosophy—we just think it looks badass.”

Cadillac’s Clark Street Assembly plant stood for decades just a few blocks from where we conducted our photo shoot, so this ’49 was built by people who lived right here in this neighborhood. Clearly, they built it to last. Jim and Joyce Krom found it in 2013 in nearby Milford, Michigan, and have since attested to its hardiness by driving it 1146 miles to Tennessee and back. As for its appearance, the Kroms have done precious little aside from replacing the original front bumper and swapping tattered wheel covers for aftermarket chrome caps and rings.

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I hadn’t seen or even spoken to David Sosebee in at least 25 years. We met in the late 1980s when he was an aspiring NASCAR Cup driver and I was signing up teams to compete in the Christmas 500 on a NASCAR-style speedway called Thunderdome in Melbourne, Australia. David competed in his ex–Junior Johnson Monte Carlo festooned with Dawsonville Pool Room sponsorship decals, and even though he didn’t win (Bobby Allison took the checkered), we struck up a friendship as we chatted about old cars while sitting on the Thunderdome pit wall.

David is a colorful character, and I was to discover he came from a colorful family. Back in the States, he invited me down to Dawsonville, Georgia, to see his “yard full of old race cars.” At the time, he owned several older NASCAR race cars, including those previously driven by Darrell Waltrip and Tim Richmond. So, a few months ago when the Hagerty film crew and I began planning a Barn Find Hunter trip to north Georgia, I called David to see what might remain of his old cars.

“I don’t have too many race cars anymore, but I have an old Ford I think you’ll like,” he said.

Soon I was standing on Sosebee family land deep in the north Georgia mountains. David reminded me that his father, Gober, had been an auto mechanic by day and a local stock-car racing legend and moonshine runner nights and weekends. He was also a visionary: Following World War II, Gober had plans to carve the first high-banked superspeedway into the side of a mountain on the family’s property years before the Darlington track claimed that title in 1950.

Gober raced mostly Ford coupes beginning in 1939 at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta until retiring in 1964. “He won the last three races he ever drove,” said David. By then, Gober had also quit hauling “’shine” from the mountain towns of Dawsonville, Dahlonega, and Cleveland to suburban Atlanta.

His hauling days behind him, Gober decided the family needed a new car to replace the old 1957 Chevy. Interestingly, the new car he ordered could have easily been converted into a more modern liquor hauler.

“Dad ordered the Fairlane in 1964 directly from a Mr. Johnson at the Ford Motor Company assembly plant in Atlanta,” said David. “Dad liked peppy cars, so he ordered it with a 289 Ford engine.” It was also equipped with a four-speed gearbox, dual exhaust, and heavy-duty suspension. All those high-performance parts in a rather pedestrian four-door sedan. “But he didn’t want any power-robbing accessories like power steering or air conditioning, because he wanted it to go,” said David.

“When the car was finished, my father got his insurance papers and went directly to the Ford assembly plant to pick it up,” remembered David, who was 9 years old at the time. “They told my father he’d have to pick up his new Fairlane at the dealership, but Daddy was adamant that he was going to drive it home from the factory.”

Before things got heated with assembly-line personnel, Johnson appeared from his office and instructed his plant workers that Gober would indeed drive the new car home. It has been tucked away and well cared for ever since.

Young David and his brother, Brian, rode in the Fairlane’s back seat to holiday and family events. “Dad mostly drove. My mother, Vaudell, was used to automatic transmissions by then,” he said. This car is likely the only four-door Fairlane ever built with so many high-performance options. The Fairlane was seldom driven, accumulating a mere 69,687 miles in the ensuing 60 years.

I asked David why his father didn’t order a sportier two-door coupe. Was it because the four-door sedan could more easily haul the family? “Probably not,” he said. “By the 1960s, most moonshine haulers were using four-door sedans, because they were easier to unload when they got to the destination.” Gober probably just wanted to cover his bases in case his retirement plan didn’t work out.

***

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The post Tom Cotter finds a moonshiner’s fast Ford family hauler appeared first on Hagerty Media.

I kill my cars. This declaration, which I made in the latest issue of the Hagerty Drivers Club (HDC) magazine, will probably come back to bite me when it comes time to sell a member of my fleet. And I’m okay with that.

For the September/October edition of the magazine, we focused on imperfect cars and dedicated all 140 pages to what we called “The Patina Issue.” It’s very much a pet project because I’ve long wanted to celebrate driver-quality machines and the people who own them. The car world is obsessed with perfect paint and low-mile classic cars, and I thought the cars that get driven, without worrying about a few nicks and scratches, deserved some limelight too.

Readers agreed. HDC member Alan Keisner wrote, “Thank you all for this wonderful issue,” and Frank Hopper, another HDC member, simply said, “For all my fellow old car enthusiasts, let’s just enjoy the ride.” These guys—and many other readers—understood the inclusive message we hoped to communicate.

You can read some of the patina material on Hagerty.com, but for the full experience, you need the printed magazine, just one benefit of the Hagerty Drivers Club. HDC members—some 800,000 strong—highly rate the printed magazine, a validation for the extreme care we gladly devote to this seemingly anachronistic media product. We call the magazine a “lean back” experience and imagine our members sitting in their favorite easy chair, relaxing and reveling in its glossy pages when they’re not out driving. HDC membership is available to anyone regardless of whether you insure a car with Hagerty. Give it a try via this link so you receive the issue we just sent to the printer: A doozy that highlights the end of Camaro production and contains a beautifully written coming-of-age 1981 cross-country road trip in a Checker Cab.

The car world is mostly consumed with the UAW strike. I’m no labor expert or CEO, but our friends over at The Autopian published a piece that explains at least one underlying issue: The coming proliferation of car models as EVs join gas-powered cars. One estimate suggests that the number of models will quickly increase from 400 to 600, which reminds me of something Bob Lutz told me he heard from Lee Iacocca: “Don’t plant too many flowers because you can’t piss on all of them.” In other words, don’t dilute sales and marketing efforts. The trouble is that car companies need all these models, both the new EVs and the gas-powered cars and trucks that will continue to fund them for many years. A tricky puzzle.

What makes an EV or a battery American made? That debate matters because the answer will determine which electric cars are available for a $7500 tax credit. The Wall Street Journal published a terrific summary.

Tesla is in court defending itself in a civil trial brought by the estate of an owner who died when his Model 3 veered off the road. At issue is Tesla’s Autopilot system and whether Tesla is liable for driver, or in this case possibly computer, error. I’ve mentioned many times that Tesla’s use of terms like “Autopilot” and “Full Self Driving” is overreaching at best and closer to reckless. In opening arguments, Tesla’s lawyer admitted that the driver assist systems are “basically fancy cruise control.” Wow. This is an important case.

This past week, we posted the latest in our series on homebuilt cars, “Homegrown,” which celebrates ingenuity and craftsmanship. In this edition, George Carter turned a Corvette into a street legal Le Mans racer and put some 8000 street miles on his creation. Wow! Also, the Barn Find Hunter, Tom Cotter, filmed one of the oddest and most interesting cars ever made, the Lotus Europa—which also happens to be a personal favorite of Rob Siegel, our resident poet mechanic. He’s documented the joys and horrors of ownership here.

Have a great weekend,

P.S.: Your feedback is very welcome. Comment HERE.

Please share this newsletter with your car-obsessed friends and encourage them to sign up for the free weekly email. The easy-to-complete form is here. And if you’d like to support the efforts of Hagerty Media, please consider joining the Hagerty Drivers Club.

The post Never Stop Driving #69: Enjoy the Ride appeared first on Hagerty Media.

When we drive our cars, they collect signs of that use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, in which this article first appeared, explores the delight found in such imperfect cars. To get all this wonder sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link. To read about everything patina online, click here. 

Why the obsession with patina? What’s wrong with fresh and new? My real issue with patina is that I find the general understanding of what actually qualifies as such to be a bit, shall we say, slippery.

A story: While at an auction in the 1990s writing up cars for a magazine, I found a friend’s Porsche that was about to go under the hammer. It was a 356 ragtop, and it’s important that you know that my friend was extremely parsimonious. Which is a nice way of saying cheap. So cheap that when it came time in the late 1970s to paint his car, he balked at paying $2500 for a professional job, taking it to one of those “any car, any color, $69.99” places. The paint lasted a little over a weekend until it started to fade. And there were flaws, like bugs in the paint that you could see from 5 feet away. His solution? First, he ignored it. Then, after a year or so, he started sanding the finish, but—because sandpaper costs money—he used kitchen and industrial cleaners that he “borrowed” from businesses he frequented: Comet, Bon Ami, Scrubbing Bubbles, whatever.

After a few weeks, his Porsche showed a very mellow red, and, in all fairness, he had done a good job both masking and “sanding,” so one could imagine it was a paint job from the 1960s that had faded. He also had the seats retrimmed in the very cheapest vinyl he could find. The floor coverings were trash, so when another friend had his car’s carpets re-done, he asked for the used carpets for his car.

At auction, the punters were, to say the least, excited. “Look at that—my gosh—it’s almost untouched!” I heard another potential bidder wax poetic about the seat vinyl. Another, assuming the paint was original, speculated that “if the Porsche factory knew of the car, they would surely buy it back!” My friend, who was present at the auction, sat back, said nothing, and watched as his car sold at near a record price for the model.

I have seen a respected restoration shop use what’s called trompe l’oeil, or “deceive the eye” painting, on brand-new, out-of-the-box suspension components, which is intended to give the viewer a “convincing illusion of reality.” It would have fooled me, at least from a distance, had I not been forewarned. The car in question went on to win first in its class—the survivor class, that is.

Here is my takeaway with patina: Trust, but verify. Actually, forget the trust, and double down on the verification. Just like all the other idols we car collectors tend to fall over backward for (“low miles,” “matching numbers,” celebrity ownership, and “clean” Carfaxes), these issues are only as important as they are to us, the potential buyer.

Fresh and new is how virtually all cars enter this world. And that’s how they looked when most of us fell in love with them. When I was a kid, I dreamed of walking into the Datsun showroom and buying a new 1972 240Z. Buying one today with sagging seats and dirt on the carpets from 50 years of other people’s tushes and feet might not scratch the itch. Aside from the ick factor, the wear and tear is a constant reminder that I’m driving someone else’s dream. I want to fulfill my dream—the one from 1972. The classic car industry has that power: It’s called a restoration.

Keep in mind, these aren’t necessarily my feelings, but that clearly is the way many people feel about their old cars. So, as we celebrate patina, let’s not dismiss the enduring appeal of a pristine car or the enthusiasts who spend the money to turn back time.

***

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The post The case against patina: Perfect cars sure are pretty appeared first on Hagerty Media.

When we drive our cars, they collect signs of that use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, in which this article first appeared, explores the delight found in such imperfect cars. To get all this wonder sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link. To read about everything patina online, click here. 

***

Hagerty Drivers Club magazine sat down with member Richard Vaughan, a designer who has 30 years of experience in a variety of automotive product development roles at Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Rivian, to ponder the question: Will Radwood-era (post-1980) cars develop patina?

Vaughan, a graduate of Detroit’s College for Creative Studies and a lifelong car enthusiast, has written six books on Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Aston Martin and has been a concours organizer and judge for decades. He currently serves on the Advisory Team for the Detroit Concours as well as on the board of directors of the Rolls-Royce Foundation Museum and the Rolls-Royce Owners’ Club.

Hagerty: Tell us what you think patina means in the classic car hobby.

Vaughan: Patina means worn in as opposed to worn out. It’s like if you buy a Ralph Lauren leather club chair, and over the years it becomes worn in and it looks like you’ve enjoyed it, but it’s still beautiful. That’s different from being worn out. Worn out looks like something you need to throw away and replace.

Cars made before the ’80s have several sensory cues that communicate that they’re worn in: smell, touch, feel. For the interior, leather, fabric, carpet, and wood are probably the four primary materials that create these sensory perceptions. On the exterior, it’s metal and chrome. Acrylic lacquer paint was commonplace from the immediate postwar era through the ’70s. Cars had a lot of paint, and it wasn’t quite as glossy as modern paints. When you polish and polish acrylic lacquer over the years, it gets thinner and thinner, and you get those beautiful areas where you can see that someone has maybe polished through the paint a little bit. It has what I would call a luster. That changes the more you polish it, and the cars can take on a really lovely look of being worn. You can tell somebody’s loved it and they use it.

Radwood cars don’t have it?

Vaughan: You can’t get that patina because the technology just doesn’t allow it. Radwood cars all have urethane, or polyurethane, paint finishes, which is a two-stage paint: base coat, clear coat. When the clear coat fails, it starts peeling off and looks like crap. It never looks worn in; instead, it looks great until it looks bad. You’ll see the paint peeling off the clear coat in sheets.

How will exterior plastic trim age?

Vaughan: Plastics for urethane bumpers and that kind of thing often are painted, but the black-molded-in-color plastics just turn gray and look awful and then you’re trying to put Armor All on it. I mean, if you ever see an old Pontiac Aztek or Chevy Avalanche where half the car is covered in that cladding and it’s really faded—you see these little, like, lines? That’s the mold flow of the liquid plastic as it enters the injection molding tool.

Are there any remedies?

Vaughan: The idea that you could preserve it and it’ll look like it has patina? That is not going to happen. To make the car look good, you’d have to paint the parts, which is kind of weird, as it’s a deviation from the original, but you could paint with a matte finish; it doesn’t have to be a glossy paint. But then it’s not original patina; it’s something else.

So, exterior plastics will not have patina as we know and appreciate patina?

Vaughan: It would be a compromise thing. In the ’80s and into the ’90s carmakers, especially of mass-market cars—this doesn’t apply to a Ferrari or a Bentley—but cars like a Corvette or a Pontiac 6000 STE—they use a lot of PVC—polyvinyl chloride—and a lot of polypropylene, which is the hard material that turns brittle and breaks. In the ’80s, most of that polypropylene, or PP as we call it in the industry, was painted. If you had a beige interior, they would mold the plastics in beige and they would also be painted beige. And, so, two things can happen. You can have the paint starting to separate from, or delaminate from, the substrate, or you can have the plastics getting so brittle that they break and are not repairable. When you’re shopping for a used car from that era, you have to ask: What was the climate where that car lived? If the car came from Texas, every time you take a plastic part off the car, you might as well be sure you have a replacement when you need to put it back on. A car from a place like Seattle where it’s not incredibly hot and there’s not a lot of UV damage, because there’s a lot of cloud cover, might be OK. But eventually time will get all these polypropylene parts.

Is it possible that 25 years from now we collectively might decide that it’s charming when those 1990s plastics turn gray?

Vaughan: I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in life, but I don’t think anybody will value that.

Does that mean that in 2050 we will clearly know the difference between a patina-era and a non-patina-era car?

Vaughan: A lot of it will depend on the car. There may be within a certain car community an appreciation for some aspect of the degradation of the materials, like we do today for cars in the ’50s and ’60s that are original. But it’s going to depend on how those materials were used in a particular vehicle.

Here’s another example: leather, which people value a lot, but which has changed and evolved. If you look at a car from the ’60s or ’70s and into the ’80s, leather seating was literally leather sewn together, which can be repaired. And if it’s a really nice car with a thick hide properly dyed rather than simply sprayed with a topcoat of color, you can get a beautiful patina as the leather wears in and you start to see some of the layers of the material. These leathers didn’t have coatings to prevent moisture from getting in. So you could put a cream on the leather, what we call “hide food.”

But in the ’90s, car companies started laminating the leather to protect it and add softness. The leather is laminated to a foam scrim, or backing, to provide some initial softness when you touch the material. But over time, the foam backing starts to break down and de-laminate. And then the leather seat looks like a sleeping bag. Look at, say, a 2007 Aston Martin V8 Vantage or DB9 or an ’07 Bentley Azure convertible. You peer into the interior and you say: My goodness, these seats look terrible, loose and baggy. It’s because the foam has de-laminated and turned to dust. It’s common across most premium automakers—I have this conversation all the time with the Rolls-Royce community.

What if that coated leather cracks?

Vaughan: Putting hide food on modern leathers is a waste of time and money because the coatings are designed to prevent, to repel, absorption.

The leather that we of a certain generation loved because of the way it looked, felt, and smelled, and its incredible durability? That traditional material is not considered to have a premium haptic anymore. Today’s luxury buyer would find it to be too hard and firm to the touch. That all changed due to the consumer desire for this sensory perception. It’s also worth pointing out that the cost of leather is very high in more than mere dollars. Leather is extremely heavy.

Foam lamination is also used for vinyl. When we say vinyl, what we usually mean in the car industry is a PVC-coated cloth. And when you talk about synthetic leather that you might find in a modern upscale car like a Lucid or Rivian, that typically is polyurethane. In the business, we would always call that “PU” or “PUR” for polyurethane. And the technical term for these treatments, by the way, is polymeric films.

If we say vinyl, that’s internally [inside car companies and suppliers], because we know that the consumer doesn’t like that word, so we don’t use the word vinyl if we’re talking about the higher-end product that’s polyurethane-based, even though it is indeed just vinyl.

Everybody would consider it vinyl, but the industry often draws a distinction between PVC vinyl and PUR by calling PUR “vegan leather”—but they’re both just petroleum-based polymeric films. The main difference is that the PUR feels more like leather.

None of these plasticized interior materials is going to age well?

Vaughan: Well, that’s one benefit of PVC. It looks good and lasts forever. Everybody’s heard of MB-Tex. You can see a 50-year-old Mercedes and the seats look brand new.

Is PVC vinyl a candidate for patina?

Vaughan: No. Patina implies that it has a worn look. This stuff just doesn’t wear; it can last a very, very long time. Now, of course, like everything, there are really cheap versions where you can wear off the topcoat. But, you know, a car that has a really nice PVC vinyl will keep a new look or good condition look for an extremely long time.

You mentioned Corvette earlier. If we’re talking C4 through C8 Corvettes, in 2050, will there be aftermarket replacements for both interior and exterior plastics?

Vaughan: I think the cost of injection-molding tooling is lower and lower all the time, and 3D printing will allow people to replace parts that would have otherwise not been available. But these are going to be like-new spec. There’s no way in 2050 to make a C7 Corvette have patina as we currently perceive patina.

So, back to our earlier thesis, patina may die after 1980 …

Vaughan: I think your thesis is accurate.

***

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The post Will modern cars, and modern materials, age gracefully? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

When we drive our cars, they collect signs of that use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, in which this article first appeared, explores the delight found in such imperfect cars. To get all this wonder sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link. To read about everything patina online, click here. 

Back in the mid-1950s, there were lots of great unrestored cars in barns and carriage houses. At the time, if someone bought an old car in decent condition, it was common to have it completely restored.

My father loved Model A Fords and was constantly on the lookout for cars and parts. On weekends, we’d hit the road in his ’49 Plymouth wagon, towing a trailer. We’d stop at Ford dealers all over New England and ask for new-old-stock Model A parts in the rafters or on shelves. During one trip to Vermont, he asked if there were any old Ford parts out in the dealership’s storage area. Dad walked out back and saw a Model A 400 with roll-up windows and bucket seats. Built in 1931, it was one of the rarest Model A’s. It was totally original, and he bought it on the spot for $300.

Once home, Dad cleaned it up and took it to a Model A Restorers Club meet at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. It was so nice that in judged competition, it was beaten only by a perfectly restored car. At the time, my parents were having a house built and needed the money, so my dad sold the car to a Michigan doctor.

We’d also go all over the Northeast to car shows, and there were a couple of show regulars who were really into original cars. They were often shunned because their cars weren’t as shiny and bright as the recently restored ones. Dad and I visited the Harrah Collection in Reno before it closed down and saw that many displays included restored and unrestored cars of the same model. Dad found this useful because he was always learning from the original cars: Are the stripes the right width? What kind of plating was used on the nuts and bolts?

Dad was in the restoration business—which sometimes meant restoring pretty decent examples—but he appreciated originality. One guy brought a big Packard 745 or 840 to my father’s shop to be restored. Instead, Dad suggested repainting the fenders and splash pans and restriping the car. The Packard looked great with freshly painted black fenders, and he’d saved a mostly original car.

I’m a painter and restorer, but I’ve developed a real love for unrestored cars. To this day, I contend that nothing drives better than a well-maintained original car. Though my father used the originals as a guide—to learn the correct way to restore a particular car—I learned to appreciate these original cars as art. When I’d visit a girlfriend in Boston, we’d go to museums and galleries and just gaze at the paintings and sculptures. That, along with the visits to Harrah’s and the Long Island Automotive Museum—which also featured unrestored cars—reinforced my appreciation of originality. Additionally, over the years, I learned when not to restore a car.

Back when I was painting a lot of Ferraris, an owner wanted a full repaint of his 250 GTE. Instead, I buffed and detailed it, and I persuaded him to stick with the original paint. That project helped me realize that there are several ways to bring a car back to life.

I first saw an unrestored Hudson Italia when I was about 15. I stayed in touch with the owners until it finally became mine, 38 years later. Upon seeing the cracks in the original paint, most collectors would have restored it, and I might have, too, had I managed to buy it when I first saw it. Years later, it is the only original Hudson Italia, and I truly appreciate it for its originality.

Over the years, I’ve had more than a dozen unrestored cars. The best was a 1921 Stutz Bearcat. Bought new by a Boston surgeon and found in Georgia with its cylinder head off, the car still had its original documentation stored under the seat and all its tools remained. When I saw it, I knew I had to have it, and I had the transporter there before the seller could change his mind. After assembly and lots of cleaning, I took the car to Pebble Beach, where it won the coveted FIVA trophy for unrestored cars.

I no longer have the Stutz, but I’ll never let the Hudson Italia go, and I’m thrilled to have an unrestored 1954 Arnolt-Bristol Deluxe, a 1953 Hudson Hornet, a 1956 Fiat Viotti Sport Coupe, a 1910 Chase truck, and a 1953 Studebaker Starliner coupe with just 7000 miles. Restored cars can always be restored again, but these jewels will only be original once.

***

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The post Carini: My dad taught me to love original cars, not just perfect ones appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If you watch too many automotive cable shows and read too many articles on collecting, the mantra that gets beaten into your brain is to buy the best car in the best possible condition, as that’s what’s likely to appreciate the most. Another way this sometimes gets phrased is, “You can’t spend too much—you can only buy too soon.”

That’s all well and fine if you have the disposable income to spring for the best of the best. However, many of us don’t.

One way out of this trap of a surplus of passion and a deficit of funds is to buy a car that doesn’t even attempt to be a shiny lust object and instead is one that proudly wears its age and experience out in the open.

I’m talking about patina.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably aware that patina can be desirable. Battered-looking goods have their own appeal, even apart from the monetary value that untouched originality occasionally brings. That’s why home furnishing stores are full of new cabinets that have that distressed French farmhouse look and why Fender sells a “Time Machine” line—new electric guitars pre-distressed at the factory to simulate decades of stage wear. This “relic-ing” has spread into the car world as well. Some of it may have been kick-started by the rat-rod movement that began in the hot-rod world 30 years ago, where a backlash against the cost of shiny customs resulted in home-built cars with oxidized body panels, no chrome, and steel wheels. Ironically, the term “rat rod” has now morphed into a moniker for any car with an outrageously distressed finish, even if it’s sitting atop expensive oversize alloys.

Yet one of the biggest selling points of patina—the “real” kind, at least—comes down to dollars and sense: Worn cars are usually significantly less expensive than those in excellent condition and a bargain compared with those where every inch of the car has been brought up to like-new standards. This makes it possible for someone of modest means to buy their dream.

I’ll caution, though, that if you go this route, you need to be absolutely honest with yourself and aware of the fact that if you’ll never be happy unless you own a car in condition A, you should buy a car in condition A and not buy one in condition C and try to put it into condition A. Aside from the financial havoc that will likely cause, there’s a very real risk of mucking up the car.

Here’s the deal: A car’s appearance is a synergistic thing where the condition of the paint, the brightwork (the exterior chrome), and the interior all hang together and project a certain image. If you have a well-patinaed car that you want to “restore” (and I use that word in quotes because it means so many different things), you slide down an expensive slippery slope because you need to address all of the items that project that image. If you just paint the car, all the old chrome looks like hell. Replace the bumpers and trim with new, and all the rubber and glass look old. Complete the exterior refurbishment, and the interior shows its age.

It’s much easier—and less expensive—to live with a car where both exterior and interior already have a certain amount of wear on them. Since the car is nowhere near perfect, you’re not constantly chasing perfection because you’re not under the illusion that you’re going to reach it. And, since you’re less worried about dings from driving and parking, you’re more likely to use the car.

For these reasons, I’m a big believer in cars with patina. My 1973 BMW 3.0CSi is the only car I’ve ever had an outer-body restoration done on. All my other vintage cars have some degree of patina. My ’73 2002 and my Bavaria are lightly dinged survivors wearing original paint. The previous owner of my ’72 2002tii sanded off the rust spots and touched them up with doesn’t-quite-match, rattle-can Rust-Oleum. My ’75 2002—known as “Bertha”—has rust spots the size of dinner plates on the hood. My ’74 Lotus Europa Twin Cam Special was stored under a tarp in a storage container for over 30 years, which carved some interesting patterns into the dried-out, fragile paint.

Personally, I love the look of surface rust blooms against light-colored paint. It looks so organic—like flaming but done by nature. Of course, there’s a line between patina and just plain beat up, but most of us know that line when we see it. When it’s at its best, patina has the natural sensibility of Monet’s Water Lilies or the inherent rhythm of a Jackson Pollock abstract.

One misnomer about patina is that, since the car is already imperfect, you can drive it in any kind of weather. Any vintage car is inherently rust-prone, and a car that already has exposed patches of surface rust is even more so, so storing it outside, driving it in the rain, or—God forbid—in the snow and salt is likely to cause the rust to explode.

But this does raise the reasonable question of how to protect the surface rust that’s already there and prevent it from spreading or deepening. There are four basic approaches. Be aware that only the last won’t alter the patina’s original, baked-in-the-Arizona-sun look.

The first is to sand down any scaly rust that will fester, then spray clear coat. Make no mistake—this is painting, and as such, the quality is proportional to the amount of preparation. If the surface isn’t clean, the clear coat won’t adhere well and will eventually start to peel (hey, maybe you want peeling clear coat as part of the patina). And presumably you’re clear-coating the entire car, not only the surface-rusty area you want to preserve. If there’s flaking paint in addition to the rust, you can’t just clear-coat over it and trap it like a fly in amber; you’re going to need to sand it. Personally, I’m not a big fan of clear-coating patina, as it seems to me that if you’re going to prep a car and then shoot a hard coat of anything, you might as well go all in and paint it. Plus, “shiny patina” seems like an oxymoron.

The second and widely popular approach is to wipe on an oil-based product such as boiled linseed oil (mainly a wood preservation product) cut with mineral spirits, or Penetrol (an additive for oil-based paints to help lessen brush and roller marks). Both work as rust inhibitors by providing a layer of oily protection and helping the surface to shed water. After treatment, the surface looks wetter, shinier, and darker, which can make both the paint and the rust colors pop more, though all these effects will fade within months, depending on the level of exposure.

Be aware, though, that this approach has downsides. The creeping nature of oil is good for getting into rust pores and inhibiting corrosion, but if in the future you want to have the car painted, it can be difficult to get the surface oil-free. Linseed oil and Penetrol will eventually harden, but until they do, they can be gooey, so don’t wipe them on when the pollen count is high. Even after hardening, they can get tacky on a hot day.

The third approach is to do what you’d do on a car whose paint was simply faded—compound it and wax it. The idea is that the compounding will bring out the shine on the remaining paint, and the wax offers rusted areas some of the same moisture protection and water-shedding as the oil-based products while not penetrating as deeply into the metal and thus not being potentially troublesome if you later wish to paint the car.

After reading the above approaches, you can appreciate that, when you see a heavily patinaed car that’s shiny and whose colors pop like an exotic bird’s plumage, that’s not how it rolled out of the junkyard—work has been done on it to give it that look.

The fourth method is the one I prefer: Don’t touch it. I’d no sooner change the worn look of any of my cars than get plastic surgery on my own scarred and craggy face.

Find an imperfect car and then resist the urge to “fix” it. You’ll smile like an idiot when you drive it on a Sunday instead of bemoaning the fact that you always wanted one but couldn’t afford it.

***

Rob’s latest book, The Best Of The Hack Mechanic: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally-inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.

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The post Can you live with patina? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

When we drive our cars, they collect signs of that use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, in which this article first appeared, explores the delight found in such imperfect cars. To get all this wonder sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link. To read about everything patina online, click here. 

Look up at the night sky to see one of the best examples of patina in the known universe: our moon. It has been rolling up miles for the past 4.5 billion years and it is sun-faded and totally blasted with stone chips. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll get around to restoring it. In the meantime, we all know that the hands of the clock move in only one direction, and so far, nobody has figured out how to freeze time or, better yet, turn it backward. This despite thousands of years of noodling on the problem. And it is a problem because time marching on means age and decrepitude creeping in. We are aging and so is our stuff, giving rise to multibillion-dollar industries that promise—and uniformly fail—to stop it.

Patina. It’s the Italians, renowned for their metalwork going back to the Middle Ages, who get the credit for the word. It literally refers to a shallow dish but in common usage describes the layer of tarnish on metal—often a dish—due to oxidation or reaction to chemicals. Of course, patina goes back much further than the Middle Ages. Not long after some unknown artisan cast the first glittering object in bronze around 6500 years ago, it started turning green. And you can bet that the customer was pissed, initiating both the first warranty claim and a centuries-long assault on patina that traces a direct blood lineage to the Eastwood catalog.

The question we are attempting to raise is whether we should even bother. Because patina can be a lovely thing. Indeed, the second definition of the word patina in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “a surface appearance of something grown beautiful especially with age or use.”

What makes an old, used thing more beautiful than a new, clean thing, exactly?

“You’re like the 400th person to ask me that question,” said Steve Babinsky, founder of Automotive Restorations, a Pebble Beach–quality restoration shop in Lebanon, New Jersey.

“I have no idea. There is no intelligent answer to that question. Personally, I like patina, but my customers don’t.”

Along with Henry Ford, who crammed a sprawling museum full of unrestored machines in the belief that technology should be preserved in exactly the condition in which it was used, Babinsky is a kind of disciple of patina. Meaning that he owns numerous original prewar classics himself, including an unrestored 1928 Lincoln with a Locke & Company–coachbuilt body that is currently buried in the shop behind a couple of freshly restored Duesenbergs. “People will walk right past the Duesenbergs to see this Lincoln,” he said. “It’s just more interesting to see how the old dead guys did it back then.”

Babinsky also helped start the preservation class at Pebble Beach in 1998 by entering a Belgian-made 1927 Minerva. It has a unique, impossible-to-restore fabric body, and it was the first original-condition car to enter the famed concours in decades. The preservation class was the institution’s recognition that patina (being the handmaiden of originality) has a place at the pinnacle of the classic car world.

Since then, it has earned a place at other rungs on the ladder, from Magnus Walker’s shaggy “urban outlaw” Porsches to the turbocharged, nitrous-fed rust buckets built by YouTubers like the Roadkill crew. Every year, the Antique Automobile Club of America features a class at its events called HPOF, for Historic Preservation of Original Features, which welcomes cars from all eras with original equipment. Originality is king and patina is no handicap. “People obviously come at this hobby from different directions,” said Steve Moskowitz, executive director of the AACA. “There are a whole group of us who enjoy being transported back to a kinder and gentler time than it is today. And seeing something unmolested is pretty cool.”

Patina on a Radwood (1980–99) car can especially be appreciated when it’s on a rare or high-dollar car. The key is wear, not neglect. Think Ferrari F40 with pitted paint on the nose and rear quarters and faded event participation stickers on the rear glass. — Art Cervantes, CEO and cofounder of Radwood

In common car parlance, “molested” refers to what happens to cars after they leave the factory. It’s perhaps an overly punitive term that can mean anything from miles on the odometer to a roof that has been sawed off. To be fair to earlier generations, pretty much every car built for the first half-century of the automobile’s existence experienced only depreciation. So nothing much was at stake. Cars didn’t really start appreciating in value until the past 40 years or so. Until then, a vehicle was there to be used in whatever manner the owner saw fit until it had no use, then it was scrapped. Indeed, during the two world wars, it was considered a dereliction of your patriotic duty not to scrap worn-out old cars.

And the real prizing of unrestored originals is an even more recent thing, growing in importance over just the past couple of decades. Maybe it’s simply another frivolous indulgence stemming from our postwar peace and prosperity. Nostalgia is the privilege of those who aren’t starving or fighting world wars. Another take might be that it’s a reaction to our modern throwaway society, where nothing seems to last except things made in the old ways (and which testify to that fact by bearing the patina of long and faithful service).

The most famous Barn Find patina car I’ve had was my Ford Country Squire wagon with a 428 and four-speed. I drove it across Kansas with a surfboard on the roof and half the people gave me thumbs up, and the other half thought I was homeless. — Tom Cotter, Barn Find Hunter Extraordinaire

Lance Butler of Los Angeles is 30 and daily drives a ’65 Mustang notchback that he bought from the original owner, the proverbial little old lady from—not Pasadena, in this case, but nearby Pomona. “Original cars are charming because they have a different spirit from a restored car,” said the McPherson College auto restoration program grad and professional mechanic and collections manager. “I’ve owned restored cars. Original cars show function and use—the history hasn’t been washed away.”

Butler likes the evidence of the Mustang’s previous owner. “You can see her habits in the car, where she put her arm on the armrest and where she scratched the steering wheel with her rings.” Butler also has a ’36 Ford that he bought from a guy who had owned it since 1950. “There’s a sticker on the window for his World War II squadron, and there were a bunch of pins in it, like ‘Vote for Willkie.’ There are stains in funny places, where people probably spilled a 5-cent cup of coffee. If you offered to trade me for a freshly restored ’36 Ford, I would say no.”

One of the foremost experts on and enthusiasts of patina is Miles Collier, founder of the Revs Institute in Naples, Florida, a museum and research archive devoted to collecting, preserving, and telling the story of historically significant road and racing cars. Many of the Revs cars wear their wear and tear with pride. “Patina is essentially everything when we’re dealing with relics from the past,” says the reliably quotable Collier, whose book, The Archaeological Automobile: Understanding and Living with Historical Automobiles, attempts to prove that there is indeed an intelligent answer to the question of why patina matters.

“One way to think about it is when objects are created, they are analogous to human children when they’re born,” Collier told us by phone. “We all look the same, we all look like Mr. Magoo. But by the time we’re in our 50s and 60s, we’re all palpably different from every standpoint.”

Likewise, said Collier, objects made in a mass-produced industrial environment are essentially all the same when they come off an assembly line. By the time they have experienced “the vicissitudes of life, they’ve been used, consumed, modified, changed, crashed, updated—all the things that happen to cars. They have gone from being one of a series of mass-produced products to being a one-of-one. They are uniquely transformed by their experiences, and those experiences are manifested in the patina.”

Patina isn’t like rain, descending from the heavens and wetting all objects the same, Collier continued. Every bit of patina on a car is unique and speaks to a very specific incident in its past, whether you know what the cause was or not. Patina gives an object a temporal dimension as well as a spatial one, which makes that object far more interesting, he believes. “That is as close as we can get to the reality of that object’s experiences over time. Why on earth would you ever mess with it?”

Besides, it’s important to remember that the clock never stops. A freshly restored car is the same as a freshly built car, in that both start aging the moment they are assembled. The scientific term is “inherent vice,” which is defined as the tendency of objects to deteriorate over time because of the basic instability of the matter from which they are made. In cars, plastics get brittle and crack, iron and steel rusts, rubber rots, glass hazes, and so on.

I think there’s an appreciation for a 200,000-mile Ford Pinto and there’s an appreciation for a completely restored Pinto. I don’t know that one is, you know, more respected than the other, because they’re equally as ridiculous. — Alan Galbraith, founder of Concours d’Lemons

A car is in motion even when it’s not—even if it’s parked on ceramic tile in a climate-controlled vault. “They all are on a downhill slide to oblivion at some point,” said Collier, “and that is something we need to know, and it makes owning these cars more of an obligation and at the same time is immensely freeing.” How so? Because any car acquires patina, whether it’s used as living room decoration, as a locked-away financial investment, or as it was intended, as a tool for mobility. Rather than fret about it and fight it, we really should be celebrating and participating in it.

OK, but if they were selling tickets in time machines to go back to 1965 and buy brand-new Mustangs out of the showroom, wouldn’t people like Lance Butler be first in line? Well, obviously that is impossible, and a car that attempts to go back in time through restoration, no matter how good or accurate the job is, “is for all intents and purposes a reproduction, a replica, a simulacrum, a facsimile,” said Collier. “All restoration is fictitious. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing, I’m just saying that’s how it is.”

One reason is that any restoration done in the year 2023 brings with it a 2023 sensibility. “That sensibility automatically makes anything we do fictitious. Because we don’t see the world the way the maker saw it, or the way the user saw it, or the way the person who left it under the apple tree saw it.” Even if you can procure the exact correct paint, and paint it exactly as it was done originally, and chrome the bumpers with the exact same technique and materials, and so on, eventually you will come to points in the restoration where there is no choice but to “stick your finger in your mouth and put it up in the air and see which way the wind is blowing,” Collier said. Because you can’t go back in time and know everything that the people who originally built the car knew.

Yeah, but why does that even matter? A sizable contingent of the old-car world thinks like Babinsky’s customers and would argue that cars are best when they’re shiny and spotless. If not exactly new, then they’ll take a “fictitious” like-new on any weekday plus twice on Sunday. Certainly if the alternative is chipped, scratched, faded, dented, and fritzy. To be sure, owning and operating an original car brings its own pains. “They’re fragile things,” acknowledged Babinsky, whose oldest unrestored car is a 1903 Pierce-Arrow. “They are gradually falling apart.”

Fine, agrees Collier, there’s no problem with wanting shiny and reliable—that’s the owner’s privilege. And at some point, if the car is decrepit enough, it may tell its story better if it’s restored than if left original. That car’s journey toward patina, toward having a fresh story, will begin as soon as you back it out of the workshop.

But if everyone demanded shiny and new, we would be scrubbing away our own fingerprints on time. Patina “is the thing that humanizes cars,” said Collier, and that’s really what it’s all about for people who think like him. Machines in and of themselves are interesting, but like every other machine, a car is merely a tool, and “it’s the human-machine interaction, the human-tool interaction, the human-object interaction that is the critical thing that engages us. We love to see the tool, but we want to know how it was used, why it was used, what did the guy who made it think, what did the woman think, what were their fears, their interests, and so on. Those are the things that add flesh and blood to the object.”

So go out to your garage or driveway and behold your collection of rare, unique, ones-of-one. They are your fingerprints on time, your own flesh and blood as reflected in a machine, your proof that, like the moon, you rolled up a lot of miles and have the stone chips to prove it.

Then come back inside and keep reading.

***

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The post Life is imperfect. Why should our cars be any different? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

From the time a car rolls off the assembly line, it accumulates signs of aging and use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, in which this article first appeared, explores the delights found in fading paint, rust, and other such imperfections. To read about everything patina online, click here. To get Hagerty Drivers Club magazine sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link.

“Cars come to me to die,” I joke. I’m allergic to polishing, buy cars to use them, and search for machines with a few blemishes or troubling history in hopes I’ll pay less to land the experience I’m after. Then I drive them.

I’ve long admired those who fastidiously detail their cars and am often embarrassed that my own cars look comparatively disheveled; I’m like the parent who sends his kid to school dressed in rags. A friend finishes a long drive with a full day of cleaning. Since his cars always look amazing, I asked him to take me through his process. When he got to the part where he removes not just the wheels but the fender liners to access the unseen areas under the body, I knew we were done. Even if I had the time, I certainly don’t have the patience. Hey, as Aristotle said: “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

I know I don’t want a perfect car because I won’t feel bad about the inevitable nicks and scratches that come from use. The car community, however, celebrates the perfect. We see it in the high prices paid for older cars that have barely been used, the so-called wrapper cars that are close to showroom new, and the pristine restorations awarded ribbons at car shows. I admire them but then think, “Oh man, will that thing ever get driven?”

I wanted to highlight the less than perfect, which is how we decided on the theme for this issue. Patina, the word that has emerged to describe a car with warts, is itself imperfect. It feels highfalutin to me, but people know what you mean when you use it. Another term is “driver quality.” Whatever. We’re here to indulge the joy of owning—and driving—a fun used car.

There’s a growing appreciation for patina cars. High-end car shows often feature unrestored machines, a trend from Europe. Other car shows, like Concours d’Lemons, emerged specifically to celebrate junkyard dogs. We’re not uncovering a trend in this issue, but rather acknowledging what’s already happening.

Our goal, as always, is to help you get more from your hobby. I also wanted to relieve myself of my guilt that I don’t keep my cars perfect. I’m sure many of you can relate. If you read these patina-related articles over the next few weeks and feel more freedom to go drive your car, then we’ve done our job. Let me know.

As usual, we relied on many generous folks to help us pull together the group of stories you’ll see over the next several weeks. About six months ago, the people at AI Design, a shop you’ll read about soon, alerted us to a trio of rally machines. The generous owner of the cars wanted us to get behind the wheel and share his love for them with you. Wow. The owner asked not to be named, but you can follow him on Instagram: @teamchampagneninjas. Then Alan Wilzig stepped up to provide a venue for driving and photography. Wilzig built a car nut’s dream on his farm in upstate New York: a private racetrack with a museum-quality garage, replete with kitchen and locker room. If there’s a heaven and I get in, I hope it’s Wilzig’s compound. We couldn’t have done the piece without their generosity. As I often say, car people are the best people.

***

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Getting that final finish on a surface is one of those things that I take for granted in the workshop. But in truth, the approach you take may vary enormously depending on the type of finish in question (bare metal, plating, a coating, or paint). So in that sense, whether it be a quick spruce-up or something more involved, it’s fair to say that setting a goal for that final finish is a “thing” in its own right.

What am I going on about really? Well to be clear, the process I’m talking about differs from a re-finish, like painting or plating. Reviving—yes, that’s the word. It means bringing back the shine in something worn, including all warts and imperfections, and perhaps lacking the gloss of a proper new finish.

That also encompasses the word “patina.” Patina is a word I think has become misused when it comes to cars. To my eyes, left-as-it-is rusted paintwork (which has its place) is something else; patina is that mellowed, softened look of old-but-cared-for cellulose paintwork, old chrome, or zinc plating.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what to do with older metal finishes. It’s something I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while now, since my ’68 Mustang GT restoration moved to rebuilding the doors. That job entails fitting locks and wind-up windows and a veritable web of linkages.

The visible “A” finishes like the window frames are chromed, but other hidden bits and pieces like pushrods for locks and window runners, are zinc-plated steel. So how far do I go with those bits?  Ignore the hidden components because nobody will see them? That’s not my style; I always have in mind what it looked like when it was installed at the factory. At the same time, since they’re in good condition (having been hidden away in the rust-free doors of a body shell that spent its former life in Arizona) a good clean to get the dust and dirt off and a light polish with Solvol Autosol is perfect.

The chrome finish on the frames? It, too, was dusty, dirty and still carried the grubbiness of grubbier hands, especially on the quarter lights. But once stripped down, cleaned with soap and water, and hand polished before replacing the old rubbers and window channels with new, they look really gorgeous. There are just a few blown spots here and there to remind of its age and originality, but not so many as to look unsightly and warrant a re-chrome. In this instance, reviving rather than restoring was definitely the way to go.

When doing jobs of this nature, parts often link to others elsewhere on the car. In this case, that meant the locks,which had to be replaced with a new matching set. In unpacking all the related bits and bobs from the boxes in which they’ve resided since The Big Strip Down, the trunk lid latch striker re-surfaced. It’s a simple, zinc-plated, pressed steel piece which bolts to the closing panel and its original luster has long departed.

That said, it’s not corroded and the plating is still intact. And my initial instinct, to re-plate, has been replaced with a preference for that word again: reviving. I’ll give it a shot, anyway. The first step will be to again use my trusty tube of premium metal polish. If that doesn’t do the trick I’ll take a more aggressive approach—the buffing wheel—followed by hand-polishing and if it doesn’t pass muster, then I’ll call “fair play” and dunk it in electrolyte for a fresh layer of zinc.

In the meantime, the intriguing question of how it’ll work out will keep circulating in the back of my mind until the job’s done. And that’s half the fun.

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Via Hagerty UK

The post How to revive surfaces and preserve patina appeared first on Hagerty Media.

What is patina? The Cambridge English dictionary describes it as “a thin surface layer that develops on something because of use, age or chemical action.”

Our last family home had patina. It was a coach house, built in 1903 as the quarters for horses and their carriages, just across the way from the servants’ house which, in turn, was a short tunnel walk (different times …) from the main manor house. The horses had long since bolted, servants no longer checked to see which room’s bell was being run and the main house had been divided up. Our current home was rebuilt in 2016, and—unless you count the scratches on the glass of the bifold doors, left by a previous owner’s over-enthusiastic Dobermans—patina is nowhere to be seen.

Our 12-year old Labrador has a certain patina. You can see it in his face, in the way he now walks, unhurried, without a care in the world, and in his blonde coat that sheds fur more than ever. Paul Newman and Robert Redford had patina in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the sort you’ll never find in today’s airbrushed world of Marvel perfection.

With cars, the best example I have seen recently was a 1950 Jaguar XK120 Open Two Seater that rocked up to the Hagerty Hillclimb looking for all the world as though it had been dragged backwards from under a collapsed barn, lost for 50 years and worn and weathered by the elements and time.

Only, it hadn’t. It had been in continuous use since the day it left the Holbrook Lane factory, in Coventry. Every battle scar and repair over time remained intact, free from the magic wand of a restorer—even if, underneath, it was in A1 condition. Taking in that XK120 was like revelling in a fireside audience with David Attenborourgh, its stories and secrets shared in fascinating detail, from its hundreds of original event paddock passes to the visible sections of bodywork that had been cut out and made good in the sort of Franken-car fashion that might make some classic car collectors look away in horror.

A significant amount of attention is paid to concours events and mind-blowing restorations of significant cars. Hagerty is involved at all levels, from the U.K.-based Festival of the Unexceptional to New York’s Greenwich Concours d’Elegance. Yet often the one car you’ll hear visitors talk about is the “survivor,” the car that has remained unchanged, unrestored, and just the same as the day it left the factory. Only, it’s gathered a patina that wouldn’t look out of place in a pharaoh’s tomb.

That patina was everywhere I looked at the inaugural, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin Patina, a car show for cars that, I humbly suggest, are rather like mine or yours.

Held at Lullingstone Castle, which is a hop from Junction 4 of the M25, I arrived in my 2003 BMW M3, an original, unmolested E46 complete with stone chips, a scrape ahead of one front wheel and a subtle but significant dent in the driver’s door—significant because it’s where Mrs. Mills reversed the family car into it. (Reader, I may have employed some sweary language.)

Nobody seemed entirely sure where to put me, or the car, despite paying for an exhibitor ticket and taking along my eight-year old son so he could experience a car show for himself. We parked up behind a Hillman Avenger and 2CV Fourgonnette, but had to dash back to the entrance to get a picture of an MGA that was more weathered than the 11th century castle (which is mentioned in the Doomsday book).

That MGA belonged to organizer, Darren Sullivan Vince, from Kennington, London. The former software developer is part of the team from Waterloo Classics and SVH Events which came up with the concept behind Patina.

“I have learned [from past concours shows] that there are people who say ‘My car’s not nice enough’ and feel awkward about attending an event and I felt that was just downright silly. I wanted to organize something for these cars that people love, that people want to drive around but don’t want to restore it for whatever reason.”

Is originality and the story of a car becoming increasingly popular with car enthusiasts, I ask Vince? “When people restore a car it erases the history of that car. It becomes a new car, which is beautiful and nice, but a concours classic car has no visual history to it any more. Patina to me shows a car’s history.”

The first visitors I bump into, by chance, happen to be known to Hagerty. James Green and Matthew Long had organised to meet at Patina, in their 1989 Nissan Bluebird and 1986 Volvo 340 DL respectively—cars that are remarkable for being original, unrestored and presented in outstanding condition. The pair attended the Hagerty Festival of the Unexceptional, in 2021.

Both praise the concept of Patina, which sees a 1981 Aston Martin Lagonda Series II in black (my son’s favorite—“It looks like Knight Rider!”) squeezed in between a 1946 MG TC that’s been driven from day one and is claimed to be the only unrestored TC still in daily use, and a 1938 BMW 327 which is aptly described by its owner as being in ‘splendid oily-rag condition’. The contrast between the TC and a Dino, parked next to it, raises smiles from onlookers—as does the juxtaposition of a Trojan microcar and adjacent Aston Martin DB5, both equally original and storied.

Adam Florio, from Ham near Richmond, London, perhaps best sums up the spirit of the event. As he walks me around his 1969 Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3, which is in immaculate mechanical condition but gracefully wears every one of its 53 years on the surface, he points to a largish piece of flaking paint and steel that’s at the bottom of the nearside doors. “You see this lump here? You can see it’s still tacky”—it moves as he pushes a finger against it—”I knew it was falling off so in the back of the car I keep some windscreen sealer which I find it the toughest stuff, so I was sticking that back on this morning.

“My philosophy is I have friends who have classic cars and they polish them and they’re absolutely mint, and they breakdown on the way back from a car show. I’m the opposite, I want the mechanics and the driving experience to be spot-on.” I look under the car at the back axle area and it really is tidy under there.

All around us are gently aging Heralds, XKs, Beetles, Volvos, Triumphs, MGs, Fords and even a Porsche or two. The back of an MGA’s hood looks like it has just encountered a category 5 hurricane, its plastic missing and sections fluttering in the breeze. Yet the roof still provide shade over the two seats—important on a day like today—so waste not want not and all that.

Patina served as a good reminder that it’s the stories behind the cars and the custodians that these machines are entrusted to that make for the most memorable day out. Oh, and that an original car can tell a story just as well as any history file.

I don’t think I’ll get my M3’s modest parking prang repaired after all.

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