Greg Petrolati's (?) response on this thread re the resurrected
Ferrari is interesting and certainly poses a number of dilemmas for
those seeking to claim a rebuilt car is as original as it could be -
given a set of well documented circumstances.
Greg concluded his treatise with the words "Of Course, this will
probably never happen to we TR folks."
Andy Mace then went on to say:
So long as a given vehicle is clearly billed as a replica,
reproduction,
whatever, and NOT as an original, I have no problem with it at all.
What
bothers me most is when such cars are passed off by their creators or
current
owner/investor/reseller as an original. They are not. In almost all
cases,
original chassis numbers are known for the "real thing."
But even here one can get into grey areas. For example, there are
three
"works Rallye TR4s" that seem to be pretty much the genuine article.
Then
there are, so I've heard, at least two other cars, both of which have
some
legitimate claim and lineage to the fourth car. Are all five (or
more?) to be
considered the original four cars? :-)
So ................
What about the various 'works' cars that were driven by the likes of
Ken Richardson, Kas Kastner, Bob Tullius and all the rest?
While I can't comment on the original state of these surviving rally
and racing cars, the extent to which they may be the truly genuine
article is more than elastic in its interpretation.
For many, the 'survival' of a car that has made history pre-assumes
that nothing on it has been changed since the day it was made.
Earlier this year, I listened with rapt interest to Stuart Turner (the
former Head of BMC Competitions Dept) talking at length to a large
group of enthusiasts on the Monte Carlo Rally Mini-Cooper S's that
have 'survived.'
The quotes are intentional.
We have the '64, '65 and '67 winning cars at Gaydon -
but they are not strictly those exact cars (though I believe the '64
car, 33 EJB is as clse as you'll get to original) The reason is that
in the year or so that they were rallied or raced, they underwent so
many structural and technical changes for specific events that little
was left of the 'original' car that first ran to victory in a given
event.
Turner went on to explain that one car (he quoted its registration)
had had several complete and partial engine, gearbox and body changes
in the one year as a
'works' team car to the extent that in one particular event it had
Morris badges on the bootlid and Austin on the front! Certainly, they
swapped the body, engine and commission number tags from 'car' to
'car' but while those same tags exist today, they were not (according
to Turner) the ones fitted to the original body!
So are these famous 'surviving cars' original?
Unknown to Mr Turner,
the owner of one 'works' car was sitting in the audience and this guy
had bought the car, secure (he thought) in the knowledge that it was
absolutely and unquestionably the genuine original in every respect.
What's more, he'd virtually re-mortgaged his house in the restoration
process and he genuinely believed his car was the real 'works'
original. To all outward appearances, it was just that - and no-one in
his or her right mind would have dared to offer an alternative view.
The stark fact is that because of all the mods carried out on it while
it was in the limelight and confirmed by the man who authorised them,
the *totally genuine original* car had all but vanished and had become
nothing more than a very convincing clone or replica of its former
self.
I think the only way to claim any famous car is absolutely original
will require more documentary evidence than probably has ever existed
to chart the changes it may have seen in its earlier and winning
lifetime - and probably this goes for most if not all 'famous' cars.
They are what you may want to believe them to be but to claim they are
absolutely as they were at their birth is stretching the imagination
too far. By another example, the Appleyard's Jaguar XK120 (NUB 120) or
the 'works' TR4's 3 VC, 4 VC or whatever VC / Le Mans Spitfires ADU ?
to ? B
are probably in much the same category.
For my money, the truly genuine car is the one that was
photographed at the start of its first event. From thereon, it tends
to become less and less its former self and even though it may survive
to this day in a similar and convincing form, it very probably isn't
what we'd all like to believe it is - namely 'the original'
It's a genuine replica.
My 02p's worth
Jonmac
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