Quote:
It strikes me that there are only 2 sorts of owners, not just in the Dolomite world, but throughout the classic car fraternity.
Let's call them, for the sake of argument, "Drivers" and "Polishers"
Polishers first, a polisher is aware he is the custodian of a piece of history and treats it accordingly, it doesn't go out in the rain, seldom in the dark, sometimes not at all in the most extreme cases (or only on a trailer) A polisher derives his pleasure from meticulous cleaning and lavishing hours and gallons of wax on his pride and joy. (and why shouldn't he? this IS supposed to be a free country) The part of our hobby which favours concours style restoration and the pursuit of absolute originality is almost entirely composed of "polisher" type people. Such folk will frown on ANYTHING that wasn't OE (like relays for headlights) this doesn't really matter, as a car that doesn't go out in the dark, doesn't need them!
Then there are Drivers. A driver is not so concerned about originality, the preservation of full or even better-than-original FUNCTION is his aim. His "happy place" is behind the wheel on a twisty, empty B road. This doesn't mean he drives a rusting shed of a car, far from it, many "drivers" cars have justifiably brought home silverware for their no less proud owners. But a "Driver" will lavish time, money and skill on bringing a rotten wreck back to a showroom shine, above AND below, purely for the pleasure of DRIVING it. So a "Drivers" car, once lovingly restored, will only have a season or two at most in the silver hunt and after that, it wll have a few stone chips, the odd scratch, dead bugs on the number plate, dust in the airvents, not such a deep shine ( well it was such a nice day I thought I'd go for a drive instead of waxing it.....) It's still kept clean and relatively shiny (futureproofing) It'll still sound lovely and performs faultlessly, it's just not got the "new" on it any more. The "Driver" accepts that entropy will win, that it's not really good enough for pot hunting anymore and happily goes back to his first love (driving) And a "driver" is the sort of person who wants to futureproof, as much as possible, the source of his enjoyment, if that means a few subtle performance and safety upgrades (like relays or TJ brakes) that's fine with him. If anyone sees his bank of relays above the battery, so what?
Steve
PS, It was not my intent here to offend or insult EITHER sort of owner, BOTH have an equal share in our hobby!
And for both a nearly invisible relay conversion set is available.
Jeroen
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