For those that haven't surfed the MG BBS yet, I posted the e-bay link over
there on the MG Car Company board to get some opinion from people not on
this list.
http://www.mgcars.org.uk/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=mgbbs&access=&mode=threadm&sub
ject=112&thread=2001052122423012383&source=L&anc=2001-05-2219:28:04#2001-05-
2219:28:04
And the 2 replies I got were:
Frank Graham, New Jersey, USA, frankgraham@msn.com
Mike,
I have some knowledge of this car and had noticed it on eBay. I was
surprised to see Derek Durst offering the car since for the past several
years it has been owned by a fellow named Tony Giordano in Westchester
County, New York. I assume that Derek is acting as a broker in this case or
has just purchased the car. Derek is no stranger to MG exotica, several
years back he had BMO 541B an alloy bodied '64 LeMans MGB, the
Hopkirk/Hedges car, which eventually was sold at auction in the UK. The
story I have heard and as I understand it is that the car that Nashe-Wiseman
found was broken up and all that was obtained were a few alloy bits and some
of the mechanical gear and most importantly the log book for RMO 699F. He
then built up a car using a steel MGC shell and when finished, used the log
book to obtain the registration RMO 699F for this car. At some later point
the owner of the other car purported to be RMO, Colin Pearcy would be my
guess, presented evidence that this registration should be with his car.
Apparently DVL(?) that issues these things agreed, the registration was
transferred and the 'log book' that Nashe-Wiseman had had disappeared. Tony
Giordano tried very hard for several years to establish a history for this
car. There are some interesting tid bits such as the chassis plate which
looks authentic and the story of six shells but only five accounted for. I
don't think there is any doubt that the factory competition department were
not averse to swapping the identities of cars to suit their needs, they were
building race cars after all not establishing pedigrees. Bottom line is that
even if Nashe-Wiseman found the remains of a works MGC GTS, what you are
looking at now is largely a replica with at best some original bits mixed
in. It has quite a bit of patina, ie. it's rough, which may make it easier
to believe it is real. However, unless some hard evidence turns up to
support a 3rd GTS being built by the factory, I think most people will
dismiss it as a replica.
Regards,
Frank
Posted 22 May 2001 at 18:57:28 UK time
David Knowles, London, david@mgknowles.freeserve.co.uk
Speaking of 'provenance', as far as Tony Giordano's car is concerned, I
think Frank expressed it pretty well - we await hard evidence to support
that car's provenance. To date there has been a fair bit of 'conspiracy
theory' and tantalising bits and pieces, but much of the evidence is based
on trying to reinterpret individuals' fading memories of well over thirty
years ago (quoting 'he said six shells rather than five ...' and so forth).
I'd love there to be a great story here, but sadly I haven't heard it yet...
All copyrights acknowledged and all that! <g>
MikeB
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