Gentlemen,
Interesting discussion regarding FIA papers et al.
Curiously, the one place which seems to have the best authenticity I have
yet encountered (and I speak as one who has had little or no dealings with
the USA or Canada, so please members of the list I am not passing any
comment on SVRA or anybody similar) is actually Australia. Oh and as an
Irishman living in Italy, I'm not being a patriotic Ozzie either!
However, while somewhat bureaucratic, the historic registration of cars in
Oz is amazing. Cars must prove their history beyond reasonable doubt to an
extent which has not always been the case with FIA papers (MGBs, Lotus XIs
and I would imagine later Lotus sports cars are all running around with FIA
papers as I understand it, having started life as much more mundane
transports (road cars or FF1600 cars) rather than their current
representation - a Harold Pace alluded to earlier.
Overall, I have been impressed with the Australian system and while I don't
think it's perfect, they do a very good job at maintaining the history of
cars and mostly keeping them as they were raced. One thing which they do
which would not be popular with the FIA or indeed in the UK amongst many
racers, is the system of making cars use the engines they employed in their
day. So, whereas if a, say the Crossle 5s* sports car had chassis running
Dart 2.5 engine, 1600 Ford t/c, Buick 3.5 - then the cars which had these
engines must maintain a similar block, i.e. unlike the FIA regs, cars cannot
all have begun life as 1600 Ford t/cs and then be upgraded to the faster
motors (like all those Lotus XIs which were 1100 endurance cars and are now
several hundred ccs more powerful and in "sprint" racing specification)...
Regards,
Patrick
*Rather than use an example with the roughly equivalent Elfin Mallala and
get my engines wrong, I'll stick to something Irish I know better!
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