Quote:
Originally Posted by patrickt
... and it's possible that you just might not like the look of something that you know to be "truly original."
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+1 Original Shelby American supplied parts were in some cases really crude things. Position welding was hit or miss in the appearance department. It might look like something done on a table top and it might look like something done on a tractor out in the middle of a bean field. If it was an assembly that could be brass brazed, they did. If they brazed something,
oil temperature sensor bungs in street car
oil pans for instance, they didn’t usually bother to remove scale or excess flux or even touch up the paint they burned off. It was something that could start off as sheet metal shapes cut out with a band saw, they did. Could they fix a rough edge with a coarse hand file or belt sander, they did. It is easy to spot many replacement parts on cars originally built into racers by SAI; replacement parts are almost universally better looking than originals; straight lines, machined instead of cut out with a band saw, smooth radii, lack of welding scale, lack of braze flux, welds that look like a robot made them, super paint, super nice plating, or even plating on parts that SAI usually left bare or painted crudely. Even if a restored car has correct SAI race or production shop parts they have probably been polished, painted, or plated to an appearance far better than normally went out to customers.
Here's an example. Two typical unrestored brackets for Cobras (leaf spring cars) with 1-4V stock Ford induction system. The two parts do the same job. The two parts are similar. The two parts are not the same as they were hand fabricated in batches as needed. In this comparison the thickness of steel is not the same between them or any of the hand shaped radii.
Here’s another. SAAC started calling these “tear drop” style bonnet latch handles. To SAI they were “quick open” bonnet latch handles. They were fabricated and not mass produced. No two completely originals that I have seen were exactly alike and they are very visible on cars before CSX2201. These are the originals from CSX2098. The carter keys are not originals but all the other parts are. Note that the chromimum plating job was not that great. Holding them in your hands one could tell that the plating was quickly done without much preparation and rather thin.
