News Flash: Barn Find Fetish officially Jumps the Shark

I've been getting pretty sick of reading auction results for some time. Mainly because each auction further cements the fact that I won't be getting any amazing classic cars for quite some time. Or maybe never, the way prices of even odd cars like the Jensen Interceptor have been going lately.  But this latest Bonhams result really pissed me off in ways that surprise even me.The car in question is the "oldest unrestored mini in the world" and supposedly the 8th car off the assembly line.  The car has sat since 1985, and is in "barn find" condition --an original and unmolested car, as they say.  Other than a replaced drivers door, the car is just as it left the factory on July 31st, 1959-- other than the fact that it's a rusty, immobile piece of shit.The car may be "unmolested" but it was undeniably neglected, and terribly so.  And the person who paid a mind-bending 65,000 USD (!) for one of the most common cars on the planet is buying into what has become a sickening fetish for neglect, driven by auction houses, that really has started to get under my skin. For a while, I enjoyed the idea of cars being found in original condition and nourished back to driveable condition without being overrestored, as with the famous barn find Bugatti T57 Atalante sold at Greenwich a few years back. That car is now roadworthy, but mostly unrestored, and kudos to its owner. But lately, between Peter Mullin's lake-bottom, lightly crushed Bugatti artifact and this utterly ruined Mini I feel like some car collectors have forgotten what the point of originality is. And whatever constituted the definition of "unmolested" as been tossed to the four winds.
Unmolested, to any reasonable person, means that the car has been maintained regularly, kept in stock specification, and still has matching numbers. Original paint and interior are icing on that cake.  But let me ask my fair-minded readers: Which is preferable? Rotten and torn original upholstery, or reupholstered seats replaced with original style material?  Which is preferable: a quality respray from a 10 year old rolling restoration, or "original paint" intermingled with with rust all over the place because the previous owner was a hoarder who didnt give a fuck about his car for multiple decades while it sat and decomposed under a tarp? We give these hoarders far too much praise for "preserving history" when we should be asking them why the hell they couldn't bother to be better custodians of the historical artifacts they owned for so long. These high auction prices are just sanctioning this abuse and neglect, and frankly, I reject that idea. It was one thing when this "patina fetish" was confined to very rare cars like Bugattis and Delahayes that were usually neglected due to being hidden during the war, and due to the scarcity of parts in the following decades. It became more debatable when less rare classics like Gullwing 300SLs were on the block in this condition.

But no Mini owner has any excuse for not fixing their car and keeping it running. There was never a scarcity of OEM parts for these cars. They made millions of Minis! About 10,700 of them were made in 1959 alone! So enough with the barn finds. Enough with the auction house Kool-Aid!  How about some garaged, frequently driven, lovingly maintained cars in a decent state? Shouldn't that be worth more than an immobile rust bucket, no matter what chassis number it has?

via Jalopnik.

Also read about the car's discovery by an Autoblog UK editor HERE

Stray Jag Moment of Zen

Spotted this sad scene in Long Island over the weekend.  Talk about an alley cat in need of a good home...

Why do we love Patina?

What is it about Patina on a car that makes so many collectors go gaga while others wrinkle their noses?  Lately the survivor or preservation class has become a popular category at car shows, where unrestored cars are celebrated and admired for what they have become over time.  Some fellows lose themselves in the wabi sabi of pitted chrome, ripped upholstery, and stonechips from roads long since traveled while others decry the category as nothing more than fetishizing neglect.   "Patina?" one Bugatti owner once sneered at me, "Patina is something they sell you at Pottery Barn."

Is a top notch restoration a case of preserving history or destroying it?  Car lovers are not alone in pondering this topic.  After all, look what happened when they cleaned Michelangelo's  Sistine Chapel ceiling! It brought people to question whether the things to which we assign cultural value have more meaning as they were originally intended to be, or how they have come to be over time.  But who can even say with certainty how something was really intended to be when the creator of that artifact is no longer with us? When it comes to really significant cars, and those reasonably well preserved, most would agree that "leaving it alone" is better than a full restoration.  Yet what if we took this attitude for all barn finds?  So few coachbuilt cars survived the second world war intact that we would never get to experience the thrill of seeing a gleaming, streamlined Talbot Lago or Delahaye roll across the lawn at Pebble Beach as if it had just come from Henri Chapron''s atelier.  These cars were meant to be seen in all their glory, some say.  So why not let them shine, and in so doing celebrate the brilliance of the design and craft that went into them?  Why not relive the glamour of the age in which they were made?  The Mercedes Gullwing pictured in this article was auctioned off a few years back at Greenwich, CT.  As I was snapping these photos, I heard many diverse reactions to the car's condition and just as many high appraisals of its value --despite the fact it had not moved under its own power in around 35 years-- as laughter at the silly sap who would buy this old heap when he could have a restored one for just a little more.  I am personally conflicted about this myself, as a lover of both the history as well as the beauty of the automotive form.  I love the look of these worn cars sometimes, but can't help but loathe the person who let them get that way.  Oh well, I just wish I could have a decent re-spray on my Alfa...

See more pictures of the barn find 300SL here.