RASH PROMISES BUYING RESTORED

PROMISES, PROMISES. ‘Fully restored’, ‘concours standard’, ‘unmolested’, ‘original’. Alongside ‘The cheque’s in the mail’ and

‘Of course I’ll respect you in the morning’, they’re the four great lies of vehicle restoration.

Yet often there’s no intention to deceive, and most buyers are just as ignorant as sellers as to what these terms really mean or imply.

The problem is many classic car owners have a very different interpretations of these commonly used terms. For some, ‘restored’ means just like it left the factory; for others, it means something far better.

So if you were buying a ‘restored’ early Corvette, would you expect to see shiny paint underneath or overspray? And if it was described as ‘original’, would you be disappointed with new paint and new upholstery?

These were some of the questions facing Melbourne’s Louis Rokas when he purchased his first Corvette – a 1954 roadster – in 2003. A chance meeting at a national Corvette convention changed his life and led him down a rabbit warren of sources and knowledge.