Bosch Car Service Specialists 鈥?The Blog
Yesterday I posted some pictures of newly painted parts that are part of a Land Rover restoration we鈥檙e doing. I captioned them 鈥渂etter than new,鈥?and one of my readers asked if that was really the right goal of restoration. Shouldn鈥檛 we follow the vision of the designers, he asked? Today those vehicles are valuable, and often owned by very affluent people who are demographically very far removed from Land Rover鈥檚 original target market. Land Rovers were built to be working off-road vehicles that would wear out in time, and be scrapped. Today鈥檚 collectors have a very different expectation. They don鈥檛 usually 鈥渨ork鈥?their Rovers though they may attend club events. Rather than expecting them to wear out and be scrapped, many collectors expect a level of quality they can cherish for a lifetime. Where the original buyers bought for function and value, collectors buy for sentiment and sometimes-potential financial gain.
Hyundai has fitted the Elantra Touring with vertical tail-lamps out back, similar to the units you'll find on vehicles such as Volvo wagons and the Honda CR-V. They contribute to safer stops in traffic since their tops can still be seen above high hoods. The rest of the back is clean and the near non-existent rear bumper contributes to the posterior's slick surfacing. Some might expect the Elantra Touring to have a spartan interior made of recycled pop bottles and leatherette seats. Remember, this is actually the i30, a vehicle originally made for Europeans who don't believe an economy car must feel like a cheap car. The Elantra Touring has things other vehicles in its class don't, like a soft-touch dash, solid metal shifter knob and an information display between its tach and speedo. Go ahead, poke the dash - it'll give. Do that in some competitors and you'll sprain your finger.
Then, the sides and pillars of the vehicle are sliced open and stuffed or welded with armored panels, most often made from ballistic-grade steel. A lighter-weight composite material can include special resins, ballistic nylon and/or Kevlar, such as that found in bulletproof vests. Along the bottom and sides of the car, special firewalls can be added. A crumple-zone bumper can be added, too, which enables the vehicle to burst through blockades or out of rubble without damaging the radiator and other internal mechanics. Elsewhere, wheels are made to run while flat by installing polymer doughnuts where the inner tubes use to be 鈥?those will run at 60 mph or so for roughly 50 miles before wearing out. Windows are replaced with 鈥渢ransparent armor,鈥?a 1- or 2-inch-thick sandwich of plastic poly and leaded glass. The thicker it is, the more security it provides: Two inches gets you protection against a single shot from a big-game hunting rifle. Often, the heavier glass requires more-than-routine maintenance: 鈥淲e have a lifetime warranty on the work we do 鈥?but for the glass, we have a 24-month warranty,鈥?Burton says.
I hate to waste money, especially with stupid mistakes like that. But still, I had to bite the bullet and get a new truck, so I started reading the classified and driving around to look at what was on the market. In the end I got us another four-wheel drive Frontier, just slightly newer, a 2002. I picked it up at a wholesale lot in Bangor for five grand, plus taxes. It needs work, and I have it on jack stands in the dooryard right now, while I go through it, but it came with a cap, a tow hitch, and an extended cab, so it seats five. It has 144,000 miles already, so we know we won't get that many more miles out of it, but it only needs to do a few thousand miles a year. Most of Aimee's miles will go on the Matrix. Fluid Film is a godsend. I should buy stock.
