I'm not sure about that. Once you cross some threshold, a performance
oriented classic car starts to lose appeal to marque enthusiasts, and if
you're planning to go that far anyway, why start with a chassis that has
significantly higher collector car value? For all the mods he needed to do
(installing a powerglide, Dart block and heads, a Ford 9-inch rear end),
significant surgery to the cowl and transmission tunnel area are required
even if you start with a Tiger. Since you can buy a top-notch Alpine for
about half the price of a Tiger in the equivalent condition, it would make
sense to save the cash on the chassis outlay.
Speed Channel was showing the Barrett auction earlier this week and a 650 HP
'71 Vette (street legal, in the same sense this Alpine is) was bid up to
$34000, but it spent a lot of time at $17k before the auctioneer reeled in a
pair of competitive bidders. At that price the seller would have recouped
only a fraction of the money sunk into the car. The commentators mentioned
that a numbers-matching restored (or even un-restored) similar vintage Vette
would have had no problem being sold for the high 30's.
Theo
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