Restoring??

[Chris Haynes]

What if Joe Schmoe has his freshly restored 1947 Flight Red civilian Knuck in for judging, and someone else has the factory paperwork on the machine showing that it was originally a Police Silver machine with left hand throttle and right hand shifter? Is this bike a restoration or a customization? Restoration is returning it to the condition it left the factory in? How should it be judged?

[Rubone]

Since the color was an available one for the year and the trim is civilian, it is eligible to be judged as it is restored. The rule is as it left the factory based on what was available for that year, not as an individual unit. Now if the current owner and the holder of the build info could get together and the current owner changed it to match the build info, great. But that does not make it more or less correct if the restoration is done properly. It only makes it more interesting. If judging is based on individual build specs 99 percent of the bikes out there are incorrect, since the build info does not exist for the majority of bikes. IMHO!
Robbie