Restorative Notes: The Meter Is Running
April 28, 2003
Six side-draft Weber carburetors, so archaic in our fuel-injected age, have been rebuilt, with all their delicate hardware properly refinished in cadmium, black oxide, zinc, or raw aluminum. If the engine were a cake, these would be its icing, their induction roar sweeter than sugar.
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Anointed by the witch doctor, the differential is so original it's frightening. (Click image to enlarge)The 5-speed gearbox, Lamborghini’s own and not the ZF used in earlier cars, fared better, requiring much labor to inspect and rebuild, but only two syncros to be put right. The Lamborghini differential is nearly indestructible and, after inspection and cleaning, quietly waits to be reunited with its dependent shafts. But what an ugly thing it is, corresponding, I suppose, to certain parts of the human anatomy. The iron lump, marbled with a mist of rust and casting imperfections, was originally installed after receiving its maker’s mark: a rude swath of pea green paint hysterically brushed on one side of the case. Every worker had a different color to identify his handiwork, and a special batch of this nauseating green was mixed and freshly applied to replicate the original, which was stripped off during the refurbishment. That such an indignity would be intentionally reproduced begs the question of originality, and to what extent the neurotic mind will obsess, weighing what the factory did against modern standards of fit and finish. And what a prickly problem it is. While things like panel gaps, paint, plating, and upholstery work are allowed to approach perfection, quaint eccentricities involving undercoating, overspray, inspection marks, and the like are precisely the details coveted for correctness by concours judges and those of us desperately searching for a life. Painted like some tribal fetish, it will eventually be secreted in the nether regions of the automobile, never to be seen again. But I know it is in there, and I will bead blast that hideous differential in my dreams.
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