16 replies to this topic

[MOTORSPORT RESORT]

OK... Let's start this one, what is the REAL meaning of these few words.(Probably alot of $$$ ££££)

REPLICA / of an orginial design
RE-CONSTRUCTION / of a orginial car
REPRODUCTION / of a orginial

***Where do we draw the line? (Guide-lines, the Rules)

[Ray Bell]

REPLICA: This is a construction from plans, photos, memories etc of a car which seeks to be as exact as the builder can make it. Where it is not reasonably feasible to achieve perfection, the builder will always follow a path that gets the car as close as possible and do so by using methods and components in keeping with the era and spirit of the original.

RE-CONSTRUCTION: A rebuild using as many parts as possible of an original car, with the balance being remade to original plans etc. Unobtainable parts may be replaced with similar parts of similar origins and period of manufacture.

REPRODUCTION: One of a series of cars built to replicate a series of cars build previously. An all-care taken, but don't ask the impossible approach would probably pervade.

Does that match up with the thoughts of others?

[Don Capps]

Original -- a virtual impossibility for a racing car unless it was crated after its time on the track...

Genuine -- where an 'entity' has had a public career (no periods in limbo...) it character and purpose have remained the same - the ERA's being excellent examples. It has been repainted, repairs done, and other various components replaced, but it is definitely 'genuine...'

Authentic -- the best way to look at a racing car, since the 'entity' has led a "checkered" life through no fault of its own and is the sum of its parts and is now back to the specification it was at birth or some other known point in its career. Once upon a time not unusual for GP cars to be made into road cars, so the 'entity' being converted back to its form of a GP car - with considerable effort in the way of components. etc., many being not from the car or being fabricated as it is reborn. The GP car never disappeared, it was there only, well, 'different'...

Resurrection -- the use of various components of an 'entity' to re-create the 'entity' in which major components of the 'entity' are built to fill the missing spaces, but could lead to the original frame showing up after a new one has been built...

Re-construction -- using a single component or a collection from several similar ones, to create essentially a new 'entity' but with just the tiniest bit of the original 'entity' as an attempt to fool a DNA smear test...

Facsimile -- a racing car that exists where there was never an original... If there were only three made and there is now a fourth... Not necessarily an effort by Evil People since often it is the result of enthusiasm and love, not Greed and Lust - although this latter is now more often the case...this is too often A Bad Thing...

Special -- One-off cars that are indeed 'special' and never seem to reach a definititive point of being an 'entity' since the designer is always tinkering...

Duplication -- the Bugatti Disease where upon telaio X2XX1X is a basket case and its components used like centipede grass plugs to create suddenly more than one 'entity' of X2XX1X which both being touted as X2XX1X, so-named since it started with the Bugatti machines but soon sread to others as well...A Bad Thing....

Converted -- the 'entity' was a XXA, but was made an XXB when the works added some tweak... some times they are un-converted" back...

Adapted from the terms as operationally defined by Denis Jenkinson in his Directory of Historic Racing Cars: The Survivors - Genuine, Authentic & Facsimile

[GT Action Photo]

An owner-driver of a Lotus 23 vintage race car has
admitted that the car is on its second chassis and
third body. The serial number plate is the original
and makes the whole car legitimate.

This car is like the hammer that has been in the family
for more than 100 years, of course the metal head and
the wooden handle have been replaced a few times.

With kind regards,
Gary Trobaugh

[404KF2]

Once again, I'll say that when in the price stratosphere, there is a minefield of problems to worry about. It's rather like buying a Picasso - firstly, it's probably stolen, and secondly, there are about 10 times as many Picassos about now as there were before he died.

That's one reason I'll stick with low volume, low-budget, classics every time. It's not worth anyone's while to fake them, and their originality will therefore never be called into question.

That Lotus 23 story is funny!!

[Ray Bell]

Building replicas of the many Specials that raced in Australia from the 30s to the 50s is a real problem. We can find exact details on cars, gather the right parts and prepare to put them together, but if we want to have the CAMS approve them and allow them to race there is a frustrating and usually unproductive fight that might last years to be taken on.
And they say if you build it first you won't be able to run it anyway!
Yet hundreds of cars have been scrapped, many of them quite significant in our racing history. They are therefore not being duplicated...
But... we are allowed (with pre-war cars) to build them fresh 'in the likeness of' cars of the period - locally built or overseas cars - and these proliferate because of the restrictions outlined above.
So Historic Racing in Australia goes further and further all the time into an inexact representation of the days past.
As if Bell Stars and racing on hotmix weren't bad enough!

[Ray Bell]

Here is an example of an 'in the likeness of' car, which shows to those familiar with the cars of the thirties that people go to a lot more trouble today than they did then...
It really is a nice thing, with a Buick 8/40 engine and running gear from Chryslers etc. The owner is having trouble with CAMS accepting his four-carby arrangement (he has SUs), but that aside the car is up and running.

[MOTORSPORT RESORT]

Ray Bell and other Forum user's;

How about a series "International" that allows racecars that are replica's of orginals,as long as the cars are built to orginial spec's , and let cars that have components from racecars of the era. Get back to the guy who builds the car in the Back Yard or at the local Petrol Station... Sounds nice, but I don't think the theme will work, maybe I'm wrong...???

[Ray Bell]

You know I agree. And there are so many people out there who dreamed when they were young and couldn't do it, but now they can.... Let 'em, I say!
Building Vanwalls from the RR Crankcase!

[Eric McLoughlin]

If the Lancia D50 running at Coys last weekend is an example of what can be done, then I would love to see such a championship.

Although a bit "generic", Tom Wheatcroft's Formula Classic of a couple of years ago seemed like it could have been something approaching this concept, 50's styled front engined cars on narrow tyres but built to modern safety standards. It's a pity it didn't catch on.

[Ray Bell]

Maybe you could include Coys with the Goodwood story for me, Eric?
Any pics of these cars?

[MOTORSPORT RESORT]

This is a letter from the August/2000 issue of "Classic & Sports Cars"

note; This is a COPY
REPRODUCTION
REPLICA
RE-CONSTRUCTION OF THE ORGINIAL LETTER...

by; "Robert Grant" who is a good friend and also has concerns about this very subject..

"FAKING IT"
Further to your May issue and Sir Anthony Bamford's subsequent letter, it is disappointing to note the continued controversy over the LANCIA D-50s being rebuilt by :Jim Stokes' workshops. These cars were raced when motor racing was a sport and not much of a business, and it is great shame that politics should prevent us enthusiasts from seeing such an historic car in action.
There are few historic cars competing today that haven't
benefited from modern technology and engineering techniques and anyone who believes such cars to be wholly orginial is more than a trifle naive.
The major point is that no one is trying to cheat or promote a fake, drivers wish to drive them, magazines such a yours wish to feature them and we like to watch them. To the spectator, authenticity is skin deep...

Robert Grant
Dorchester, Dorset

P>S I'll try to get Robert Grant to be part of this Forum.

[Ray Bell]

He's got it right... we want to see them, somebody wants to build them, it gives more to the mags to do features about..
Don't forget that Italy is not a nostalgic country, and through the fifties and sixties there were many competition machines cut up and scrapped because their useful front-line life was over.
Cars survived because they were sold to the Argentine, Australia, New Zealand or America.

[Eric McLoughlin]

I'm feeling very guilty about the non-appearance of my promised Goodwood article. Excuses? Well, I've been very busy the last couple of weekends (Coys taking up one of them, the Farnborough AirShow this weekend) and my weekday evenings are always busy. The accountancy firm I work for has just bought out a rival practice and I have been apponted to oversee the integration of this into our firm, in other words, extra hours are being clocked up. However, I will do my best to get something to you before too long - and maybe a piece on Coys too.

[MOTORSPORT RESORT]

ERIC; IM HAPPY FOR YOU,FOR YOUR WORK "BUT"
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY?

[Eric McLoughlin]

I was responding to Ray's reminder about the non-appearance of an article on the Goodwood Festival of Speed I had promised. You'll see it a few posts up the thread. I know it's "off topic" but look at the "Amon" thread to see how "off topic" the Nostalgia Forum can get! It's all part of the enjoyment.

Hopefully, my article has been received by now.

[Ray Bell]

Received with thanks, Eric, and any time with a bit about Coys.. a couple of weeks is okay.
As for getting off topic, as one of the main culprits, I say it's luvverly!
Never know what you'll find in a thread... trouble is finding it again!