Not too long ago, Christian Von Koenigsegg told us that modern restomods effectively show a lack of desirability for cars in the current market. We wanted to hear from you, dear readers, whether you agreed with CVK’s comments or not.
And you delivered with some brilliantly passionate answers, kicking off with Jay Kay.
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“Have you ever owned an old car? Carburetors, rust, optional seatbelts—something like a Datsun 240Z? There is no joy after the dread of turning the key and hoping the thing starts until it doesn’t. That limits where you want to take it and how you want to use it.
“Imagine the sights, sounds, and sensations with none of the headache and waiting by the side of the road because a £20 part broke? So yeah, there is a place for restomods because not everyone wants a car that can go a million miles an hour or turn a sub-5min lap of the Nürburgring.”
Andrew Robinson said: “Restomodding is just the natural evolution of hot rodding, which has been a part of car culture since the first V8 was shoehorned into a Model T. We’ve always tinkered with cars to personalize them, and there have always been tasteful and tasteless, wild and mild.
“Modern cars are so complex and digital that they can no longer be modified in a shed with a spanner and a Halfords voucher, which pushes hot rodders to base their creations on older cars. In the ’70s, you could go wild with fiberglass on your own, but to do the same with carbon fiber needs serious investment, so economics require small volume production instead of one-offs. What do we call a small-volume hot rod based on an older car? A restomod.”
Time to throw an opposite argument into the mix. Peterson said: “I’m not actively against them—frankly, I don’t care much about what people do with their cars. Singer and Icon started this trend a fair while ago; run-of-the-mill old metal transformed into something better, faster, more capable. And that’s fine.
“What’s not fine is what followed. Seemingly every Keith and Jack is now in the restomod business, taking a car, plopping a big engine in it, getting the interior redone, and putting some brakes and coilovers in the car. Job done. Nothing bespoke was done, but it’s an easy half a million in the bank. I like bespoke restomods with a purpose. Not just a tuning project, but a genuine effort to elevate the car beyond what it was at the time. An LS swap won’t cut it.”
Per52 is up next: “There are quite a few cars that I would fancy as gentle restomods, with the purpose of bringing some kind of modernity to drivability, comfort, and safety to a slightly antiquated but lovely-looking older car. Adding stuff like power steering, air-conditioning, all-around disc brakes, head restraints, fuel injection, and a transmission with more than four gears, while rustproofing the renovated shell thoroughly. Yes, please!
“My biggest gripe, though, is the silly pricing. For the sums being asked for these restomods, you could often buy a really nice modern car and a mint original example of the classic of your choice, with some leftover lolly to spare. That minter will probably appreciate over time, while the restomod is probably down to half what you paid as soon as you take possession of the keys.”
86x86 added: “I’m both for and against them. I’m all up for upgrading a stereo so you have Apple CarPlay, upgrading suspension so it drives better, and upgrading the brake pads so that you can stop better, because those are all minor changes (consumables, if you will) that make the car easier to live with yet don't make changes to the heart of the car.
“I'd even approve an engine swap so that it starts/runs better and perhaps even has lower emissions as long as it didn’t ruin the spirit of the car. It’s like your grandmother having a hip replacement: She’ll have a better quality of life because of it, and from the outside, she is clearly still your grandmother. But when it comes to modernizing a car, I feel that you have to draw the line somewhere on what exactly you are messing with especially if the car is super rare.
“A great example of this is the Kimera EVO37. Lancia 037s don’t exactly grow on trees, so it would be sacrilege to take one and change pretty much every body panel, light, and exterior part on it. But as we know, Kimera doesn’t use actual 037 chassis as the basis for its car—instead opting for Beta Monte Carlos, a car nowhere near as rare as the 037 and arguably flawed enough that nobody would miss a few of them being used by Kimera.
“And this is basically where I draw the line. What I worry about is lots of rare cars becoming permanently scarred by restomods which cannot easily be undone. I like to see cars kept in their original glory. All you have to do is look at Supras and Skylines to see where modifications generally negatively affect the cars.”
NOTE: This story first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
