Matt Prior: When is a DB5 not a DB5?
If a classic car has had most of its parts replaced, is it still truly a classic?
Our columnist considers the philosophical questions that surround vintage car (and bike) repairs
To the Ship of Theseus and Trigger’s Broom, now add Matthew’s Bicycle.
This is one of the world’s oldest philosophical thought experiments. Belonging to Athens’ heroic co-founder, the famous ship “wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars and was preserved by the Athenians… for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place”.
And so the experiment runs: at some point, when all of the original rotted planks were replaced, was it still Theseus’s ship? Or was it a different one? See also: “This old broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles.” It’s a perennial poser.
During the past few weeks, I’ve considered it too. The gym is shut and biscuits are in ample supply, so I’ve put my old mountain bike into more regular use, but it needed a service.
It’s a Marin on which I spent my cleaning job earnings in 1992; I think I loved it then and cherish it now because it was the best bike I could afford. I think it cost £390 and I know my parents were horrified – although, 28 years later, they’ve just about come around to the idea.
It’s mega. It has taken me up mountains and home from the pub, at times it has been left outside for weeks and sometimes my children borrow it. I’ve used this bike much better than I’ve looked after it. The frame, forks, stem and head bearings are still original, as they left the shop. The rest is not or soon won’t be.
And what if the frame corrodes and cracks too, and the old planks as they decay need replacing with stronger timber? Then nothing will be left of the original bike.
Will it still be the same one I bought in 1992? To me it will be, because I have history with it. And if it doesn’t seem original to you, here’s the thing: it doesn’t really matter.
Where it would matter, though, is if I tried to flog it to you as the bike I bought in 1992 and you later discovered that no part of it was.
Also if somebody else repaired the broken frame, or used the wheels I replaced in 2000 or the chain that snapped last week, then built a bike around any of those and tried to tell you that it was my 1992 bike. Which they wouldn’t, obviously, because that would be daft. It’s not worth it.
It might be worth doing if it were a racing Alfa Romeo 8C, Ferrari 250 GTO or Jaguar D-Type, though, might it not? There are many more parts discarded from those cars to choose. What’s original then?
This is where thought experiment can turn into more heated discussion and even litigation. And typically it’s where the argument of ‘continuous history’ comes into play. What makes my 1992 Marin my bike is what should make a crash-repaired racing car the same car, even if another is later built around discarded or damaged components.
This is why manufacturers are careful to call their new builds of classic cars ‘recreations’ or ‘continuations’, no matter how high the quality or strong the provenance of the maker. Continuous history is key, at least when it comes to money, if not, definitively, philosophy.
None of this, mind, explains the ratio of handles to heads. I wonder as a former cleaner, how come nobody at Peckham Council Procurement asked: ‘Why so many handles?’
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