Make Mine a Modificato

There’s been a lot of discussion recently of original, restored and preserved collectible cars.

Let me throw another set of trade terms into the pot: as-built versus modified. While I was once a stickler for the former, as my needs and the driving environment have changed, so have my thoughts on the topic.

A 1,988-pound 1956 MGA with a 1,489-cc, 72-horsepower 4-cylinder engine and a 4.3:1 rear axle was perfectly suited to the two-lane highways of its era, before the Interstate Highway System expanded in the late ’50s.

On today’s freeways, however, traffic routinely cruises at 80 mph. And those cars are not the same size as our classic cars. A new Toyota Tundra can tip the scales at over 6,000 pounds. Being a part of that traffic flow is no fun at all. 

It’s no wonder that the magic of classic-car tours happens on the 55-mph backroads that make up most routes.

Drive or show?

This begs the question of intent. Do we own our cars to admire them or to drive them? If your car is a highly detailed static piece of art, hauled out of the garage for an occasional afternoon club picnic tour or concours, then how well it cruises on a modern highway is irrelevant. But if you enjoy long-distance tours and rallies, some thoughts about useful modifications are in order.

Even on a classic car tour, there are generally hundreds of miles where you are merely cruising. For instance, we attended the local Porsche Club’s recent NW Passage tour. It began in Klamath Falls, OR, a 280-mile slog from our home in Portland. That’s just to get to the start of the tour (not to mention making the same drive home). When you are traversing nearly 600 miles, whether your engine is turning at 3,000 rpm or 4,500 can make a noticeable difference in your comfort.

Is it wrong then to put a 1,798-cc MGB engine into that MGA? Or add a 5-speed transmission?

It is a slippery slope, I know. We can ask more questions like this, such as whether it’s okay to add a power brake booster to a Volvo 122S. How about putting electric power steering on a Ferrari Daytona? Or perhaps the ultimate disrespect, fitting air conditioning to a Mercedes Gullwing to combat its notoriously toasty interior.

In the end, it’s your car. Unless it is a rare, significant example, you should feel free to modify it to suit your driving and comfort needs.

With Daytonas, for instance, so long as there is a single example left in absolute stock condition to use as a reference, why not put power steering on all the rest? Why not make low-speed maneuvers and parallel parking just a “thing” instead of a muscle-building nightmare?

I see Holley Sniper electronic fuel injection units being fitted to C2 Corvettes. Is this blasphemy? When (not if) the “Cross-Fire” injection system in my son’s C3 becomes a “cease-fire” unit, should I convert it to a modern aftermarket replacement rather than fight to fix an obsolete technology with some parts no longer available?

Magical matching numbers

I looked for 10 years before I found my 1958 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Veloce. At that time, I was a stickler for authenticity. I bought the car primarily because it had all its original mechanical bits, and the engine and chassis numbers matched the ID tag that was under the hood.

I went to extreme lengths to rebuild the original 750-series engine and tunnel-case gearbox. It was expensive, and this was the last engine Alfa expert Denny Pillar built. To overhaul that 750 engine, our Alfa mechanic Nasko estimated it cost at least twice to three times what it would have to just rebuild and install a later, larger engine along with a modern split-case gearbox.

If I were Sprint shopping now, I’d go about it differently. I’d look for a solid, rust-free body that somebody else had already dropped a 1,750-cc engine into, along with a split-case 5-speed.

While I admit there is a narcotic effect to the snappy rev nature of an early Giulietta engine, a 1,750 with an overdrive 5-speed and 4.1:1 rear end easily cruises at 75 mph. That 600-mile traverse would no longer be a monotonous and agonizing exercise.

Could I tolerate the snide comments about “wrong motor” at an Alfa concours? My emotional pain might be assuaged by the extra $5,000 I had in my checking account.

Upgrade at will

As driving conditions have changed so dramatically in the past 50 years, why harness ourselves to outdated technology, when simple drivetrain upgrades can enhance our ownership experience?

If you own your car to drive and enjoy, consider a few tasteful upgrades that will make you look forward to the next multi-day, 1,000-mile rally.

If your 356 no longer matches its Certificate of Originality or Kardex issued by the factory, I won’t tell anyone if you won’t. Please wave as you fly by at 80 mph. ♦