If you found one of these race cars today how would your restore it?

[turbo69bird]

Restore the car stock

Restore the car to as raced

Let’s assume they are all dealer owned cars raced by the dealer themselves . Not privateers
Only because ( for some ) it narrows the complications to some extent.

[Pusher_Man]

I know it’s not an option and doesn’t answer your question but if I found one then I would leave the sucker as is. Old, lettered up race cars peg out the cool meter in my book. Especially if they have original paint and lettering!

[L72copocamaro]

Really loaded question. To me, if it has a pedigree, keep it as raced. Otherwise feel free to do whatever your preference is.

[turbo69bird]

Originally Posted by Pusher_Man

I know it’s not an option and doesn’t answer your question but if I found one then I would leave the sucker as is. Old, lettered up race cars peg out the cool meter in my book. Especially if they have original paint and lettering!

I would fully agree w that, but for arguments sake let’s assume they need a resto.
I’m just trying to gauge which way people prefer these old race cars stock or race. It’s kind of an ongoing ( friendly) argument between two friends. But let’s also assume it’s not totally hypothetical because we are trying to decide if people actually had to put their hard earned $$ up for an actual resto which way they’d go.

[Pro Stock John]

For me it would depend. If we were talking a super rare Camaro for instance, like a ZL1, the car is worth a ton restored.

If we are talking a somewhat rare car but it spent it's whole life as a race car, a '69 Z/28, I'd probably restore it as a race car if it was all cut up already and had ladder bars, tubs etc.

I think when the car has the potential to be worth 6 figures most folks would restore to stock.

[turbo69bird]

Ok well most of those cars pictured are 6 figure + cars

I don’t want to interject what I think at this time because I don’t want to sway things .

[turbo69bird]

Didn’t want to leave the olds guys out.

And since this is probably gonna get ugly w out some parameters let’s assume it’s a stock eliminator car appropriate for the year of the car, pretty much in its stock class form not all caged, tubbed and changed
From
It’s regular form . It’s basically stock w bolt ons and blueprinted, headers, slapper bars or bolt on ladder bars, basically a day 2 race car .

Sorry guys thought this would be easier .

[big gear head]

It would always be a race car to me.

[chevyman0429]

I say there’s plenty of fully restored cars out there and limited old warriors I’d leave them in race car apparel!

[Steve Shauger]

I would lean toward restoring as delivered, unless it was a significant race car with great history.

If it was just tired looking race car I'd leave it alone and preserve. Nothing wrong with a little patina and preserving history.