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What does original mean?


businesscar1917

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My own feeling is that "original", as regards automobiles, simply isn't definable. The AACA rule of "as it left the factory" may be fine for the 30s, 40s, 50s and later but it's a mass of contradictions with earlier cars. My own car was not supplied with headlights... so would the AACA require it be displayed without them? And what is "modified"? I think we can agree that a crate engine is modified but what about a different carburetor? I bet about 80% of the brass cars out there are running newer carbs...so are they modified? Then we get into things like aluminum pistons, modern seals, better cams and a host of things that are the result of 100 more years of automotive development. In many cases, it is impossible to keep these things out because they are often all that is available. The problem isn't that nearly all running cars are "modified" to some degree, it's in the hypocrisy of saying they are "100% original."

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1 minute ago, JV Puleo said:

My own feeling is that "original", as regards automobiles, simply isn't definable. The AACA rule of "as it left the factory" may be fine for the 30s, 40s, 50s and later but it's a mass of contradictions with earlier cars. My own car was not supplied with headlights... so would the AACA require it be displayed without them? And what is "modified"? I think we can agree that a crate engine is modified but what about a different carburetor? I bet about 80% of the brass cars out there are running newer carbs...so are they modified? Then we get into things like aluminum pistons, modern seals, better cams and a host of things that are the result of 100 more years of automotive development. In many cases, it is impossible to keep these things out because they are often all that is available. The problem isn't that nearly all running cars are "modified" to some degree, it's in the hypocrisy of saying they are "100% original."

 

I think it was meant to be interpreted  of how it was delivered to the public when offered for sale when new, using the factory authorized components. 

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If that is so, then at least for early cars it is probably impossible. I say "probably" but I really think "certainly". The whole construct of judging these things is based on practices that developed over time and were not in effect in the first 10 or 20 years of the century. "Factory authorized parts" are highly questionable before WWI when accessory catalogs abounded and practically everyone who owned a car "modified" it in some way if only to add a windshield. How about those rear-view mirrors clamped on brass model T's? The rear-view mirror wasn't even invented until Ray Harroun used one in the 1911 Indianapolis race. How long was it before it became a common accessory?  Looking at period photos, few cars have windshields... go to any early car meeting and nearly every car will have one.

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Having personally looked very closely at many thousands of original era photographs, and some of about any kind of car you can name, I can only estimate that about one car out of several hundred actually had a rear view mirror before about 1920. A popular accessory in the early days, they were not. I do have an original brass side mirror (steel bracket). It will hopefully go onto my '15 runabout, and be the only apparent after-market accessory on that car.

 

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9 hours ago, J.H.Boland said:

 

Actually no. Many small municipalities had motorized apparatus.I have an album of Bickle (Woodstock,Ont.) motor trucks and they date back into the teens. Some small towns had a trailer mounted pumper that was towed behind the chief's car.

I was born in Woodstock. Bickle and King-Seagrave Fire equipment were long time manufacturers in our town!

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