We do not market any parts with any implied guarantee for Top Flight or Gold endorsement or acceptance. Practically every few years the organizations that publish judging manuals revise their criteria and standards. What was previously acceptable may now be deemed not acceptable. I cannot keep up with these myriad revisions. Over that past 20 years these are a few of my observations.

Judging has evolved considerably. Cars that were tops years ago are now second rate. Others are now “over restored” - they are too nice. Today, others should not be restored, they are considered historically significant i.e. survivors. Today one can not merely achieve Gold or a Top award. Apparently in an effort to maintain owners involvement and the accompanying judging and convention fees, new levels of achievement are instituted. Now the achievement levels are Performance Verification, the Duntov, the Bowtie, the Founders, the 5 Star, the Triple Crown. Where does it end? How can you keep the same owner attending events? Keep on raising a new pinnacle.

Tom B. from Waterbury, Connecticut is the original owner of a 77. After achieving a certain level in judging he decided to pursue the higher levels and traveled all over the USA to have his model judged and re-judged. Every few weeks between events, he would purchase parts to comply with the deficits enumerated on the judging sheets. He confided that a number of the parts he replaced were merely to conform to those required by the judges, even though as the original owner he knew the part he was removing was in fact the correct original part. He stated that he had come so far, that he felt compelled to finish his journey. He also added that once that pinnacle was reached, he would never ever do it again.

Another fellow borrowed a friends original gas cap and jack when his 62 was judged. That helped him achieve the points the judges were looking for. Fair?

Several years ago at Corvettes at Carlisle a gentleman in his fifties asked me for a part. In our conversation he stated that he had traveled from California and was only looking for a few bolts with a particular stamp on the head. That was all that he needed to finish his car and have it re-judged. I could not help him. After he left I could not help but think that somewhere a judge had turned this mature successful businessman into a blithering idiot in search of nirvana.

I was an authorized distributor for the now defunct Wittek Hose Clamp Co. for over 15 years. After they went bankrupt, there was allot of hullabaloo about the correctness of the different Wittek hose clamp reproductions. I my remaining inventory of original Wittek clamps, I found the following. The number 28H radiator hose clamp had 13 different variations with regard to the “Sure Tite” character size, font style, hyphenation and orientation on the band of the clamp. Some are “SureTite”, others are “Sure Tite”, others are “SURETITE”, or “SureTite”. Some are all caps, others are italics. They vary in point size; orientation on the band. The placement, size, font and orientation of the 28H also varies. - So which one is “correct”? They were all made by Wittek.

An original GM blueprint for 5/8” heater hose (circa 1960) show 7 different authorized suppliers. Each had a different pattern of ribs for identification purposes. Some judges pronounce that only one rib pattern is acceptable. Apparently they must believe that just one of the companies was the exclusive supplier. The 3/4” heater hose blueprint also show 7 different authorized suppliers.

A restoration book states there were over 10 shades of Black paint on a Vettes parts. There are probably even more, when you consider all the different companies that supplied GM with Black parts. I wonder if anyone could reformulate all the different shades? Do you think they would sell?

When you make a repro, it is often judged to a higher standard than the original GM part. If you repro a Chrome part, it has to have flawless Chrome. And we all know that the original GM parts all had flawless Chrome - right?

I was the very first vendor to offer white stripe vacuum advance hose. Several years ago I saw it on a 5,000 mile 63 coupe, measured it and had it reproduced by another company. Months later I had a judge telling me the stripe was too wide. Now we own our own printing machine for hoses and it can prints hundreds of feet per minute. The weight of the machine actually rests on the hose and as you run it the stripe can actually vary slightly in width.

If your ultimate goal is a trailer queen with all matching dates and numbers - please pursue such parts elsewhere. Remember, the only truly original parts for your car - are the part that came on the car. All others are truly replacements.