Rebirth Of A Myth – Part 2

25 July 2016 Redazione Vintage, Your Cars

I remember once someone telling me “ I wish good things could last forever”. I personally don’t.

Good things always help but I don’twant to risk gettingused to charm, beauty and power; being bored by these quintessential qualities is something I could never forgive myself. Like Ulysses with the sirens, I would desperately keep all the cars I restore, they mirror my personal idea of restoration, what’s best to me. I long to have the chance to behold the beauty of the lines, feel the power of the V8s, get lost in the charm of what theyused to represent. But what these cars give to a 1960/1970 Italian exotica addicted don’t deserve by any means to be affected by routine, it would be unfair to them, to the history of the brands, to the people that made it possible. On the contrary, memories of good things should last forever, and I will have so many of my Indy #262.

Rebuilding this car has been more complex than expected. My grandfather used to say “anyone can disassemble,but only theskilledone can put things backtogetherso that they eventually work”. The Italian supercars manufacturers of the period usually started a new car from the design of the body. It had to look good, exceptionally good, it had to make people fall in love with the idea of driving it. That’s the reason why nobody really paid anyattention to the engine compartment room, the vital clearance among mechanical components so that they could actually work:they made them virtually“mechanic-proof”!The designer bent the mechanics to give shape to a dream, charm, beauty and power. I  happened to spend days and days putting the power steering back together, the engine chassis in place, the rear axle to match itsbrackets on the body. Once you get used to it, it’s like discovering the Rosetta Stone, you get tuned in and most things seem to share the same logic, which sometimes is just no-logic so you stop looking for it!

Working on this early Indy you get the feeling it’d been hand-built. You perceive the skill of the engineers who built such an emotional work of art without having the budget to develop a car from scratch. Maybe today this enthusiastic effort, inherited from the racing experience, plays an important role in enthusiasts’ feeling about Maserati.

Beauty will save the world, someone said. It certainly does when it pays off for days, weeks, months of hard work. It keeps you there, it keeps you working until the end when you see it finished, when all the bits found their spots, the last screw its place, the last switch its wire. At that point, with a shiver down myspine, I made three steps back and there’s nothing more important to do thancontemplating it. All your efforts are piled up in front of you, they are beautiful, you blew life again on a bunch of iron.

I’d take some time before getting back to the detailing phase. I want toenjoy the sight of this Trident-shaped nugget, to touch the body, to enjoy the leather of the original interior, to feel the years spent on the border with Slovenia, the years spent in Rome sharing the stable with a Mistral convertible, what a pair – ruby and gold!

When the time of doing the details comes, I concentrate on cleaning the engine bay, getting rid of inconsistent adds, nourishing the leather, freshening up the carpets, polishing the thousands of chromed bits that enlight the “cockpit” of this airplane on four wheels. As I often say a restoration should never get the car to “better than new” conditions. The reason is simple: a vintage supercar, especially Italian exotics, were as far from being flawless as they were reachable for normal pockets. To get the car to a level of perfection unknown by the factory which built it is just like making another car, a clone maybe, which nonetheless never left the factory. Likewise it’s pointless to strive for originality and give a Maserati, a Lambo or an Iso the same shining paintwork you wouldgive a modern car. It just never existed.

While working on the Indy I experienced the same feeling I had while on duty on the Urraco, on the Deuville or on the Lele. They are all hand-built cars for people looking for glamour, striking presence and performance, certainly not for perfection. That doesn’t mean of course that quality is an option. Quality in my opinion is keeping as much as the original car as possible and rebuilding the rest by working as the factory meant them to be, improving -in case- the weak points which affect reliability, leaving the aesthetic as it should be. Henry Ford once said “spend a dollarwhereeverybody can see it”; I wouldtranslateitinto“spend a dollar where everybody can feel it”.When you’ll be driving your car, I guess you won’t be that bothered about blinding people on the sidewalk, whereas the feeling of driving a car that flashed through the decadesembodying the inner meaning of those times, making people dreaming, that will surely make you proud.

Once the last bolt has been polished, the last square centimeter of leather has been cleaned, the last screw has been duly tightened, the Indy will be ready to go, leaving not only good memories but, more importantly, leaving the sense of accomplishment that I have given this car the chance to keep driving (fast) with charm, beauty and power to the next owners and decades.

CLICK HERE for part 1

Words and photos by Manuel Bordini