To me, that's an invisible difference. It's only in your mind. If you had a Rene Herse, I'd understand wanting to keep it original, just as I would think it sacriledge to remodel the kitchen in a a Frank Lloyd Wright house. You don't paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa.

But a 72 Moto, there's plenty of them.

I have a "reasonably rare" Gitane Gran Tourisme, only about 500 imported into the US. I've had that frame for over a year, originally I was thinking about modifying the frame and repainting it. Now that I have had time to think about it, [MENTION=61614]verktyg[/MENTION] (Chas) was right. I'm keeping the frame original, but I'm not going out of my way to make the components exactly correct, but it will be "period" correct. But if it came with french threaded cranks, I'd probably tap 'em out to 9/16"