This may be a dumb question....If the car was being restored in the early to mid 50's and people say the knowledge is better now than then-how is that possible? I realize that memories fade over time, but the people who made, and bought cars new were still around. Were these people not restoring them or being asked? Or was the restoration crown so 'young' that they did not think to ask?
Mike
Mike I am going to offer my opinion on this. My father started "restoring" Model-A's back in the late 1950s. Opinions back then towards restoration was mostly that. There was nothing "factual" back then for my father to restore to, so he did the best with what little information was out there. Others were in the same situation. Therefore cars were restored as they were believed to be originally assembled. This is why the clubs were so valuable since they provided a venue to share information
Documentation is what it takes to be
factual, ...not necessarily someone's opinion or their memories. I don't think most folks truly realize the tremendous amount of hours of research people like Marco, Vince, Doug Clayton, Pluck, Will, Gary Johnson and others here continue to do now, ...but folks also need to realize there were many others (maybe 75-100 people) along the way like George DeAngelis, Leslie Henry, Tim Johnstone, Doc, Roger Kaufman, and et/al that had a huge part in reading Engineering Releases, Foreman's logs, and sorting through many, many engineer's drawings, parts books, M-specs, and even original purchase orders determining what details were different, and documenting dates and revisions to put them in a factual order.
In addition to this, studying photographs like a "forensic police officer" looking for clues on assembly, tools, and methods has allowed us to know more about the Model-A now than what was know back then. THAT is why we know much more now than back then.
Something else to ponder. While I would need to count the number of people listed in the preface of the Judging Stds., I suspect there would be at least 75 names there, and then there is easily another 25 people (such as Pluck, the Minners, etc.) who have researched things too but are not listed in the Stds). Let's just say there have been 100 people who have each spent just 100 hours diligently researching Model-A's. That alone is 10,000 hours of diligent research, ....and many key people have likely spent more than 1,000 hours of research. If there are 2080 work hours in a year, that ten thousand hours equates out to almost 5 years of work time alone. Imagine if your job for the next 5 years was Monday thru Friday each day of the week showing up at the Archives doing nothing more than researching and putting that information on paper!! Five years!!! As others have said before, there really isn't any other vehicle on this planet that has been researched and documented any more than what the Model-A has.
I believe it started when two people argued as to what is factory correct and also when someone offered a trophy!!
