> From: Gregory Petrolati <gpetrola@prairienet.org>
> Subject: Re: Replicas?
> To: Simon Favre <simon@lsil.com>
> Cc: vintage-race@autox.team.net
> What's the attitude on those replicas like the C type Jags, Ferrari
> GTO SWBs and a certain Aston Martin DB4 Zagato that are onstructions
> based on actual cars and using factory components? The only fference
> between the copy and the original is it's location of manufacture.
> It seems to me, as a photographer and vintage racing enthusiast,that
> seeing a carefully recreated replica of, say, that AM Zagato, is ter
> than not seeing any Zagato at all... If it looks like a cat,acts
> a cat sounds like a cat, why not let this creature play with all the
> other kitties?
I'll offer another opinion form a different perspective. It's an issue of
economics.
I've just returned from doing tech at the Lime Rock Fall Festival. Today I
teched a Merlyn Formula Ford about which the owner told a strange tale.
Seems he raced one in the early 70's , wrecked it, bought another car and
sold the old one, with a completely demolished frame and body, for parts. He
bought the car he has now, started restoring it and found the chassis plate
off his old car! Was this his old car? No way.
There are two McLaren Cam Am cars in collectors hands today with the same
tub #. One tub was written off during a race, another tub was bought and
replaced it. The old tub (with chassis plate attached) was restored at a
much later date as the same car. There are rumored to be, in fact, more
McLaren Can Ams today than were ever built, along with most rare Ferraris,
Jags and Bugattis. Many Ferrari 250s became GTOs, SWBs or T-Rs during the
heyday of the investor interest in collector cars of the late 80's. I gather
it was quite a good industry in Italy! And you can buy from the UK virtually
every part to make a new Bug.
A friend of mine followed the auction scene for a few years (89-93) and
found numerous instances of counterfeiting.
If a club recognizes a replica, it gets run for a while, develops a "patina"
and perhaps a fudged logbook, or some other "history", it becomes easier to
sell off to an unsuspecting buyer as a "real thing". Many of the people
involved in these clubs are collectors and fear their investments being
compromised.
>I'm getting kinda tired of seeing so many Porsches.
One problem with vintage racing is " who are we doing this for?" There seems
to be two kinds of events: spectator events where we want to bring out the
rare and interesting cars (Monterey, Chicago, LRP Fall Festival) and the
rest of the races where we drivers want to go have fun.
I had to explain to twenty people at Lime Rock that I didn't bring one of my
cars because I couldn't see spending all that time and money for about one
hour of track time over 4 days. Besides, I just put in two and a half hours
at St. Jovite only two weeks ago and would get almost as much at the Glen
next week.
But even I like to see the rare and beautiful cars that show up, and the
newer "obsolete but not vintage" ones too.
I've been going to races for almost 35 years , participating for 30 years. I
have thousands of fotos from those days that look just like the grids in
vintage events today! If our goal is to recreate racing of the 50s and 60s,
with the same cars, similarly prepared and racing with gentlemanly
sportsmanship, I must say we are succeeding admirably!
I dare say most spectators recognize and identify with the "mundane" MGs,
Healeys, ALfas and Porsches, rather than the exotics!
More thoughts-
After reading some of the later postings, I have a few more comments.
1) Some groups only allow cars in some classes with a legit racing history,
like SVRA with pony cars and vettes. There were some VSCCA rumblings several
years ago about that one, when the pressure was brought on the
classification committee to let in later cars, in line with other groups. It
was mentioned that they did not require the car have any racing history to
run, merely meet the age classification (and a few other somewhat arbitrary
exclusions).
2) I know of several Alfa GTAM replicas running with no real background.
They are merely Alfa GTV's with outrageous flares and wheels, built to look
like the real ones. Lots of bogus racing 911s are running too, even with
carbon fiber bodywork (met a guy last spring at a motel we were staying at
together who was bragging about the 400 pound weight loss!) And it seems
that there are a lot of Mark Donohue's Trans Am cars around ;-)
3) I can't find it now, but several years ago, the issue of replicas was
brought up in Vintage Motorsport and created an equal furor (although it
took a lot longer to play out- miracles of modern communications!) I had a
letter published noting the late Tony Hogg of Road & Track had a 427 Cobra
but bought a Kougar (Jag/HWM/Fraser-Nash look-alike, not an exact replica,
based on Jag parts) because it was so much fun to drive on the street and
could be enjoyed without so much fear for the risk of irreplaceable damage.
But it was in no way designed to be an exact replica, which is what most of
the C, D and XK-SS Jag replicas are!
4)Perhaps at some events, one could allow a class of replicas. But I'd
suggest that any car allowed to run would first be required to have a
"replica medallion" and be registered as such with clubs worldwide, to make
selling it as a real car more difficult.
Jim Hayes jeh@fotec.com tel:1-800-537-8254 fax:1-617-241-8616
Vintage racing '59 & '62 Alfa Spiders.
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