Not There Yet .... (Post # 64)

The Santa Fe Concorso

In Italian, the word "concorso" means "an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants."  Car events are central to the Age of the Automobile.  The first car show in history had to wait until the first car was produced.  But the first car contest had to wait until the second car was produced.  Then they took turns winning and losing until the third car was produced.  The rest is history.

Great cars, great setting, great day!

For me, the Santa Fe Concorso has been a good introduction to upscale car shows.  Actually, in addition to the normal heavy classics, American iron, featured marques, sports racers, and grand touring categories, the Concorso includes electric cars and hybrids, motorcycles and even bicycles.  The setting is the lush greens of The Club at Las Campanas during what is usually one of the best times of the year in this part of the country.  The catalog this year included about 120 well-chosen cars and motorcycles--more than anyone can truly appreciate in one day.  

But Wait . . . Something's Missing!

1960 Tipo 61 Birdcage Maserati--250 HP, 1,300 lbs!  

Only 16 examples were built between 1959 and 1961

The only thing missing was The Alfatross, rubbing shoulders with the other great cars and basking in the public's admiration.  

It has been 18 months since I determined that restoration of The Alfatross was my highest priority.  Why is it still not finished?  After all, it wasn't in bad condition to start with, and it's a relatively simple car technologically, utilizing 1950s technology.  Where has the time and money gone?

Radiator ornament on a 1932 Packard Deluxe Eight.

It's easier to tell where the money has gone than the time.  By far the biggest cost has been the work done on the chassis and body, but then it's the body that makes The Alfatross what it is.  I get monthly work summaries from Tim Marinos at Vintage AutoCraft which show that labor is running 30 times the cost of materials.  It's all about knowing what to do and how to do it, not about swapping out components.  

1956 Maserati Tipo 300S.  Piloted by Stirling Moss, this
 thoroughbred racer won the Venezuelan Grand Prix in 
1956 and went on to win other races in South America 
driven by Harry Schell and Juan Manuel Fangio.  

Work on most sub-assemblies like suspension, steering, brakes, drive train, electrical harness, instruments, steering wheel, electrical components, and wheels and tires can go on concurrently. Those are the things that I have been taking care of while the body, interior and engine are in the hands of recognized experts. But the time factor comes into play when a great deal of effort is required by research to find the right materials or when one stage of the restoration has to wait until another stage is completed.  

1913 Triumph Type C, complete with wicker side car, 
parasol, picnic basket, and golf club bag.   

Restoring the interior is a good example.  In spite of hours of research, the blue faux suede material used throughout the interior has proven extremely hard to duplicate, although Derrick Dunbar, trimmer at Paul Russell and Co. seems to have found a solution. The interior cannot be installed until the car is all but complete, but Derrick has already started on "stand alone" components such as the seats that can be done even without the car being present.  No time lost there!

Al Unser, Sr. takes the 1938 Maserati 8CTF "Boyle 
Special" Indy race car for a spin.  Some consider this car 
to be the most successful racer in the history of the Indy 
500, having won outright in 1939 and 1940, and having 
placed third in 1946 and 1947 and fourth in 1948!

Restoration of the engine seems to require equal parts time and money.  DeWayne Samuels of Samuels Speed Technologies has had the engine for more than two years. Progress has been delayed by research requirements, limited parts availability, the necessity of re-manufacturing worn original parts for re-use, and inefficiency associated with fees, taxes and duties when importing foreign-made parts.  The fact that several of The Alfatross' brethren do not have their original engines may be evidence that restoring an SS 1975cc engine is not as straight forward as one would think. 

The odd thing is that I'm not either surprised or disappointed.  I'm intent on getting to the end of the journey as quickly as possible while still doing the job properly--and enjoying the ride.

In a conversation with Paul Russell during the Concorso I learned about the Revs Institute for Automotive Research and the Stanford-Revs initiative (http://revsinstitute.org/about-the-institute/).  If you aren't familiar with it you should visit the site.  It's more than a car collection.  It's dedicated to the scholarly study of the automobile in all its myriad facets, and at the heart of it all is a library and archive containing more than one million items.

Yes, the cars on display at the Concorso are enthralling, awe-inspiring, but they represent a phenomenon with deeper significance.  The Concorso provides a good opportunity to reflect on the importance of the automobile in modern society, and how it has reshaped our world and attitudes in almost every way. It is easy to forget that.  We take our automobiles, the roads we drive on, the ready availability of fuel and the wherewithal to keep them running for granted these days. What was the world like before the automobile took over?  Unless you are 100 years old you can't even imagine.  

With any luck at all, a year from now The Alfatross will join the field next year at the 2015 Santa Fe Concorso and take its place as an historically important automobile.

And now for someting completely different: the 1946 Seagraves Pumper Fire Truck Rat Rod.
No car show is complete without one!