{"id":370100,"date":"2013-02-04T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T16:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/?p=46174"},"modified":"2024-01-13T15:17:12","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T15:17:12","slug":"the-stewardship-of-historically-important-automobiles-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/the-stewardship-of-historically-important-automobiles-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"[Book Review] The Stewardship of Historically Important Automobiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Review by Rick Carey, Auction Editor
\n\"\"<\/a>Everyone involved in the collector car hobby \u2013 mechanics, restorers, parts suppliers, archivists, judges, historians, concours organizers, transporters and most especially owners, even (and maybe most importantly) owners of mass-produced Model As and Chevy 3100 pickups \u2013 should acquire, read and contemplate this book.<\/p>\n

\u201cStewardship\u201d is, like the cars it talks about, that important.<\/p>\n

The description \u2018historically important\u2019 applies to every old car; there are no historically unimportant old cars. It deals with Duesenbergs, Delahayes, Ferraris and Rochet Schneiders, but its principles are equally applicable to mass-produced Chevrolets, DeSotos, Edsels, MGs, Renaults, Fiats and Isettas.
\nDr. Fred Simeone (his brief biography in \u201cStewardship\u201d only hints at his contributions to neurosurgery and the lives he has saved) is the steward of a Philadelphia collection of racing cars of consistently outstanding quality.<\/p>\n

\u201cStewardship\u201d has a point of view.<\/p>\n

It advocates preservation in preference to restoration, but it does it with a breadth of viewpoint from experienced collectors, restorers, curators, owners and agents that is refreshing in its equanimity.<\/p>\n

As Dr. Simeone expressed, \u201cThe overriding purpose of this book is to encourage one who discovers a truly preserved important car to keep it in its preserved condition as safely as possible.\u201d And, while \u201cStewardship\u201d is focused on preserving highly original artifacts of automobile history, the thought processes and competing considerations it sets forth apply even to the treatment of already-restored autos in the never-ending process of maintaining them.<\/p>\n

The content of \u201cStewardship\u201d presents often-overlapping and subtly contrasting views of the dichotomy between preservation and restoration, as well as the innate contradiction between static preservation and active demonstration. Automobiles are by their very nature dynamic creations with sights, sounds, smells and \u2013 if you\u2019re lucky enough to ride in or drive them \u2013 physical sensations that re-create the experiences of their original owners and drivers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s to the credit of the Simeone collection that it regularly demonstrates its irreplaceable automotive artifacts in the collection\u2019s ample parking lot near Philadelphia International Airport and \u201cStewardship\u201d makes a valuable contribution to formalizing the challenge of deciding what, when and how to fire up that irreplaceable original lump to hear, see and smell it run.
\nThere are nits to pick. Most are attributable to the editors\u2019 decision to treat contributions with a light hand.
\nThere\u2019s no shortage of grandiloquent verbiage.<\/p>\n

\u201cProvenantial [sic] research is again required to elucidate its cloistered pre-existence\u201d could be reduced to something reasonably readable.
\n\u201cClassically, material theory of conservation admits that the purpose of this theory stresses that for a scientific conservation, the integrity is to preserve the object\u2019s material proof, sometimes called a truth reinforcement operation. Physical features and constituents which are added at a later date or replicated simply do not carry the material truths of the object as defined by conservational thought. As Tusquets commented, \u2018The fact that is for many people, the authentic material has a numinous [\u201cfilled with a sense of a supernatural presence,\u201d in case you, like the reviewer, have never encountered this term] quality \u2026 that renders it very powerful in comparison with replicas of virtual experiences.\u201d Wouldn\u2019t it be easier to say simply, \u201cIt\u2019s only original once\u201d?
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the other hand T.E. Berrisford and L. Scott George\u2019s pictorial presentation of the authentication of the Collier Collection\u2019s Bugatti Type 35B is a lesson in sympathetic documentation, research and inference of the evolution of an old car. Evan Ide\u2019s description of the vagaries of the Larz Anderson Auto Collection\u2019s history is an object example of the effect of well-meaning but ill-considered efforts.
\nSimilarly, Malcolm Collum\u2019s description of his experiences at The Henry Ford are a gut-wrenching exposition of the innate contradiction between conservation, i.e., static preservation, and active demonstration. It\u2019s impossible to read his description of the failure of the Buick Bug [not a Henry Ford artifact] during a demonstration run without feeling his agony.
\nFortunately, throughout \u201cStewardship\u201d Dr. Simeone and his contributors offer lists of attributes to be taken into account in making the preservation\/restoration\/demonstration decision. Miles Collier lists seven ways we interact with cars:<\/p>\n