1923 chummy

[Tony Griffiths]

I’m with Tony on this, I would be more concerned that it’s had a new body, that doesn’t make for “original” does it?

Yes, the new body is a shame - and we will never know if the original could a) have been restored or b), was beyond restoration (i.e. rotten wood and a latticework of almost dissolved aluminium) or unnecessarily replaced so as to produce a pristine restoration. Imagine if such as car was found today complete and original but with its body, hood, sidescreens and trim on the cusp of rotting away. Surely the best approach would be to overhaul and keep absolutely original all the mechanical parts and get it running - but to somehow preserve or stabilise the rest, no matter how tatty it ended up looking.

My woodie is taking time and effort to preserve the dissolved aluminium holes. And the retention of some of the woodworm is a bit worrying, but I'm determined to do it, with new wood spliced directly up to tatty stuff on the tailgate.

But, as the FB thread shows, this car didn't have the benefit of a body to do that with.

Re Tony B's point: I guess it's like cars which get stored away, lost to all but their private guardians and the occasional outing. If there ARE only a few around, then they need to be out, (or at least seen, or well photo-documented), flag-waving for the marque as to how ground breaking they were at the time. If you have a '23 and make it more driveable, why not just buy a '24?

"If you have a '23 and make it more driveable, why not just buy a '24?" - absolutely spot on. That's why my wife and I have a Ruby (well, we will next year) and a '28 Chummy.

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...also fitting a starter motor, and fan. that can quickly be put back to original. i think is very different to fitting a rack and pinion steering.

Don't worry, Tony, the rack-and-pinion was only a joke! So long as the car can be put back to standard, nothing is lost - save perhaps the pleasure of the occasion when, on your tour of the Peak District (do call in for tea), it boils dry on a steep hill, refuses to start on the handle you have to turn it around by hand and bump start it on the way down. No, no, you can't engage top gear and use the starter motor, it ain't get one (a starter that is, not a top gear, of course....)

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the otherside of this is i recently bought some old 1923 body bits, so if i use them in a new body. how little original do you have before it becomes "triggers broom".

Thanks for that Tony, it now poses (thanks to Wiki, I'd no idea about this before) an interesting philosophical conundrum that goes back some considerable time:
"When Roman writer Plutarch published his ‘Life of Theseus’, he described how the Athenians had maintained the ship of their famous king in the harbour as a museum piece. Every year, Plutarch tells us, rotten planks were replaced with new ones such that, over time, every part of the ship had been replaced. So, was it still Theseus’s ship? (Yes, according to Trigger and, indeed, the Athenians!) If not, at what point did it cease to be his ship? It was, said Plutarch, a philosophical problem that had divided thinkers for generations."