Hey great story Regent. Thanks for sharing it with me.
I started our with an Alpine when a friend of mine was flat broke and I bought
his car for $500 as an act of charity. That was probably around '76. the car
had no rust, but it had a dent in every panel and it was a perfect car to go to
the beach and I could park it anywhere. ran like a top. Sweet car. I sold it
when I found a pristine original Alpine V. After I finished my 4 year Tiger
resto, I traded the Pine for a 61 E-type FHC. Now I have a Bugeye that i
restored, plus the Tiger.
One of my biggest thrills with the Tiger (other than attending a car show on
the first date with my wife) was winning best of class ten years ago at the
Lime Rock Shelby weekend. My wife (she's a no BS cookie from the streets of
Queens) had to elbow some beergut-type that was trying to muscle her out of the
location where she set up to take a picture of Carrol Shelby handing me my
trophy and she snapped a perfect picture with my old manual Nikkormat. She was
really nervous about taking the photo because she knew it was important to me
(we were not married at the time, sigh how things change ;<)) and I set up the
focus, shutter speed, and F stop and gave her a mark on the ground to stand
atso she would be ready when they called me to drive up with my car into pit
road. She was not going to give an inch.
Met a very nice couple from Quebec that day and I talked to them about Tigers
for some time. They took a business card and about a month later they sent a
videotape of the festivities to me. It was quite touching and an act of
kindness that I will always remember.
Bob
Rigent Gagnon <regentgagnon@rogers.com> wrote:
>No, you should not have lurked. The list gets a little silly at times and it
>provides entertainment. When I bought my car, it had no VIN. The only reason
>I bought it anyways is that my brother had owned it since 1970 and drove it
>until he crashed it in 1974. I even drove it a few times. He told me it had
>no VIN when he bought it, because the previous owner did not like the
>original colour an had the car totally redone in some sort of metallic gold
>and the shop had lost the VIN. That made sense to me because when I had the
>car stripped, we saw no evidence of the lovely orchid green except in areas
>which do not see the light. From 1975 until 1998, the car underwent a
>botched restoration including a change of colour to a deep red and then sat
>in a garage for 20 years. How do I know the number? From the registration
>renewal document for 1975. When I went to register the car in my province, I
>got some grief because the Quebec document had only LRXF as a suffix and the
>bill of sale said LRXFE. I was asked for a letter from a dealer, any car
>dealer, to say that the correct suffix is LRXFE. My Acura dealership
>provided it. The car did not get crushed, impounded or anything drastic. I
>just had to drive with a temporary permit until that got sorted out.
>
>I don't worry about the authenticity or legitimacy of the car. In 1970, a
>Tiger was basically worthless in our part of the world and nobody would be
>stupid enough to convert an Alpine into an Alger. Of course, today it is
>different.
>
>Happy Tigering
>--
>Regent Gagnon
>B382100371 (Orchid Green)
>Ottawa, Canada
>
>
> Obviously you would not want to do that. We have a lot of attorneys here in
>the US and it was my way of pointing out that it would come down to some silly
>argument (as I think this is) that could never be proved without considerably
>more information (like a listing on the Hot Sheet). Remember a certain
>individual that made a legal argument based upon the definition of "is"? A tag
>with new rivets proves NOTHING other than the fact that there are new rivets,
>and it certainly does nothing it itself to establish an intent to defraud.
I think that if anyone had their car impounded frivolously, they would have a
strong case for a lawsuit. Fear of being sued is the great check and balance
in our society against abusive and arbitrary action. Of course it take time
and money to come up with a better "whatif" than the other guy and that is why
many say we have the best legal system that money can buy.
Just as I don't think the gendarmes will challenge me on the ownership of my
shoes, I sincerely doubt that there is a single DMV inspector that is going to
go out of their way to learn about rivet minutia about a car that does not show
up in the top 1,000 of make-model-year stolen vehicles and go on an inspection
witchhunt.
I removed my vin tag during the restoration process back in '86, and knowing
what I know now I would not do it today. I had no trouble with inspection and
the numbers were carefully checked by DMV. If I were shopping for another car
and saw a repop tag or even an original tag with new rivets, I would check the
provenance a little more carefully, but with the wonderful resource of Norm, I
would automatically get an expert opinion on the numbers and known history
anyway. I would imagine the market would establish a difference in price for
2 identical Tigers (if that is possible to find, anymore)with the only
difference being the rivets. If they are they same, I would probably opt for
the original, but that would not keep me from buying the right car at the right
price with a clean title rivets or not.
In retrospect, I should have "lurked" on this. Sorry.
Melusky
Rigent Gagnon <regentgagnon@rogers.com> wrote:
>If you tape the plate to the car, you can change both rivets at once and not
>remove the VIN from the car. But why would you want to do that?
>
>--
>Regent Gagnon
>B382100371 (Orchid Green)
>Ottawa, Canada
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