CP asks if it could be that, as far as
values of cars are concerned, we 'take the canvas for the painting'
When Lorenzo Ramaciotti speaks, I always listen, for he is a
man whose thoughts have a structure and whose words have a meaning.
Lorenzo Ramaciotti is managing director of Pininfarina Ricerca
e Sviluppo, the research and development arm of Pininfarina
responsible, amongst other things, for the design of new cars.
He has a broad automobile culture and thus is a regular judge
in many shows such as the Louis Vuitton Classic and the Concorso
d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. His book 'Solitaires', paying a tribute
to exceptional pieces that communicate a special aesthetic or
technical emotion, is one of my favourites.
The
other day, during an informal summer meeting, he asked me what
actually is it that makes the authenticity of a car, and he
meant, a collectors' car. Somewhat predictably, I answered that,
by general admission, it was the chassis frame. Of course, the
most desirable object will still have all of its original components,
including the much hyped 'matching numbers' engine, and the
coachwork. But, a car with a new body and a correct specifications
engine will be called 'restored', whilst an original body mounted
on a new chassis will rather be considered a 'reconstruction'
and have far less market value.
Lorenzo
Ramaciotti questioned the merits of such an approach, presenting
a “coachbuilders’ paradox”. He is clearly
aware that an automobile first needs a chassis and an engine
to be 'auto-mobile'. He went on however arguing that both were
technical pieces, built on the base of drawings with exact dimensions
and numbers that just needed to be executed. Different for a
body which, in many occasions, made a car oh! so desirable and
was the tri-dimensional interpretation by a craftsman of a few,
not always very detailed, sketches. Replicating a body fifty
or eighty years later usually ends up in a gross misrepresentation.
And he concluded that, to him, very often, the most significant
part of an automobile was its coachwork because of the impossibility
to reproduce its uniqueness.
To
illustrate his demonstration, Lorenzo Ramaciotti took a Solitaire,
the gorgeous little Maserati A6 GCS berlinetta by Pinin Farina,
and compared two known examples: one, an authentic car (chassis)
with a new body, and the other, a new car with an authentic
body. After having detailed some of the faults on the first,
he made clear that the most significant example was the latter.
This could well revolutionize some established ideas and change
values. Could it be that indeed, we pay more attention to the
canvas than to the painting?
June 2003
P.S. I cannot resist the pleasure of sharing
one of Russell Brockbank's great cartoons with you (see below).
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