ZZ2 - What's REAL, What's NOT .... or MAYBE!

[slowwe]

Originally Posted by driftwood

Colin Bennet is now back in the UK after Amalfi racing was closed down
he was always base din the north of england near Oulton park when he ran his race shop
the 0565 std code is now 01565 these towns are the north of england in oulton park area Chevron cars in Bolton is a bit further north
Arley (Northwich) 01565
Bucklow Hill 01565
Knutsford 01565
Lower Peover 01565
Mobberley 01565
Pickmere 01565

If you had faxes from Andreason Chevron the code would be 0962 Winchester
this is near Southampton on the south coast of england

Hi guys - all help gratefully received. Just purchased completely dismantled B19 project believed to be chassis 10 - I( know there are several of these extant). The body work has Amalfi Racing stickers all over it. Any help in identifying this chassis would be great. The rumour is that it is one of the two Wocestershire Racing cars - which seems feasible if hard to prove. It has an odd chassis configuration with a kinked cross member bearing the sterring rack anyone know if this might help to identify the chassis?

[driftwood]

I looked at the project last year, did my research, and walked away from it as it is not a car that you can fit an ID to. It is all the old parts from the original car that was completely restored with new parts 20 years ago. The car's identity is now on new running gear in USA with papers. Yes, I can argue that it is the original Chevron chassis etc, etc, but the continuation car is up and running and is for sale.

Let's say an original car is racing today and is shunted: body chassis is beyond economical repair and you order new parts to rebuild car, fit the chassis plate and turn up to race. Then someone buys the pile of broken parts from you and spends 18 months fixing the bent chassis WITH Chevron stamp on it, buys all the other parts - engine, gearbox, uprights and then rolls it down the pitlane with the chassis plate on it as per your rebuilt car. Who has the real car??-you or him?

You do, because it is the original car with some of the parts rebuilt and you had proof of ownership before it was crashed and rebuilt. The other car has no ID and is just a "copy" and that is exactly the position you're in now!!!

You may as well have gone to Vin and ordered a new "continuation" car and had a plate added with the next sequance of numbers in the build programme.

As a note:
a) some of the B19`s in the number count of cars built are B16`s modified or upgraded
b) some of the B21 cars in the number count are B19`s upgraded
c) some of the B23 cars in the number count are B19 cum 21 cars upgraded and it seems most were never plated up as the newer model and Chevron do not appear to have built as many cars as they say they did.

Sadly, there are more Chevron B19-23 cars around today than were built in period. I can point out 2, poss 3, in the pitlane at races that have no traceable history from 71-87 and 1 or 2 cars totally destroyed/written off, yet are now miraculously alive and racing.

Well known saying " Buyer beware". If you want the genuine article, do the research. If you're not that fussy, good luck

[Delbert]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned the new Chevronheritage.com website.
This has been created by a couple of owners to try to create a central resource for Chevron cars with a view to keeping an eye on the plate numbers. Equally surprising is the fact that so few people have registered their cars. It is a good site built by Gerald Swan (Lola heritage fame).
It would be a great resource if only people would populate it with their cars and they only charge £25!

[driftwood]

why pay for a site when 10 10 TNF is free for info
1 reason why cars are not posted is half are not real cars with period history and continuous unadulterated line of ownership

[Delbert]

Driftwood, all the more reason for those of us with cars that we consider are the "real" thing to post their history. The more cars that are publicly identified should reduce the "new fiddlers" from entering the fray.
My comments in no way reduce the great value and resource that 10 10 offers.
Thanks

[allenbrown]

My concern with the Lola and Chevron heritage sites - and I have expressed this to Gerald - is that they take an owner's claim and publish it without checking and even without comment. That gives the impression the claim has Chevron's or Lola's backing and I believe this is going to cause all sorts of problems in the future.

But I do like the idea of charging for for this - I might have to consider that

Allen

[Simon Hadfield]

I agree completely with Allen's comments above. It is the "golden glow" provided by these sites, unchecked, unsupported and unquestioned that I feel achieves the exact opposite of their stated aims....

[driftwood]

i too support the 2 fonts of knewledeg in their comments i agree
i have already challenged t290 car info on the site and asked if they had verified it
the response was they trust the onwers views and it is for me to prove the hard evidence i am right onwer is wrong
as far as i am concrened the owner is more often than not wrong brainwashed by BS on the sellers part or often even wanting to "dupe" the world in beliveing their own BS
Mr W i can stand next to yr "mates" chevron and dispute its history as a fairytale
chevropns are aclassic eaxmaple of fabricatoion on cars historuy
Lola cars i beleive are sound
Marches are traceable and debates with race fans spotting cars at circuits autosport ads for sale race results photos and even talking with the owners from days gone by soon sort out the cars but im afraid B16 19 21 car history stories i wear my special plastic mack to save my clothes from the brown smelly stuff that is often spouted by owners
you cannot knock allen and ORC site as he goes into anal details to verify cars histories and he would be an ideal "expert" witness in a court case
1 benefit of these "heritage" sites is that it does draw out some info on real cars show up the Iffy cars and the owners with a sows ear of acar willNOT post info on their cars so again we get to know the pig in a poke
Sadly basement max has ballsed up teh FIA papers now we have fakes or replicas/continuation cars ase the BS merchants profess racing with papers and wanting the big bucks

If the Mona Lisa is worth £5 mill why would u pay £4.95 mill for a good copy!
well thats what is happening in the b16 19/21 world and heritage sites are giving the impression that all is good if it is on their site
Im off to make 2 more B19 cars just need to pick a number between 1 and 45 to stamp on the plates maybe i should use 22 33 or 44?

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by driftwood

I'm off to make 2 more B19 cars just need to pick a number between 1 and 45 to stamp on the plates maybe i should use 22 33 or 44?

Great idea Drifty; at least there would be no irate owners popping up in a couple of years! May I suggest that once you have the chassis finished you leave them outside over the Winter to develop a nice patina prior to finishing off. Likewise once you have stamped up your chassis plates cover in grease and floor sweeping leaving again for a couple of months before cleaning with an oily rag!

Sorry to give away the trade secrets!

[driftwood]

kicking plates around workshop floor as we speak to create the "period" feel of an old race car plate having been polished for years
now to create some "history" for the car in the Sudam sports car series and the Bogota 13 hour endurance race with emerson rodrigues wilson hernandez and pedro and ricardo fittipaldi

my only dilema is do i tig or use brazing rods to weld the Reynolds T45 tubes together

[Delbert]

Ouch! Wish I hadn't mentioned it!

I agree with all your comments BUT, I can only speak for myself, I made extensive enquiries and have many original documents (wagenpass etc) to support my cars provenance. Does it guarantee their history, no, but I will stand up and be judged on what I do have. To just put a car on these sites and expect tacit approval would be rather naive but please tell me where we start if not here?

Whenever I have bought my race cars I bought them because I liked them and wanted to race them. They always seemed expensive at the time and were not considered an investment (ask my wife if you are in any doubt!).

I am not a trader, car preparer or manufacture just an enthusiastic owner/driver who would like to drive my Mona Lisa in suitable company not against new tight chassis with a plate as you describe.

As I say, I think that these heritage sites are potentially a good check and balance and if not in such forms, where do you start?

[allenbrown]

I have some Fred Opert Racing letterhead you can use if you want to go for a car that raced in Wisconsin SCCA Regionals for a couple of years. And I think there were blank SCCA Log Books available on ebay a while ago. And I have the pattern for those nice little brass tags that were fixed to SCCA cars in 1972 which would look just right on your B19. And will you need a list of deceased obscure SCCA club regulars who just might have had a B19 at some time.

Am I getting cynical in my old age?

[allenbrown]

Hi Delbert - I wasn't aiming that at you by the way.

[Delbert]

Forgot to say - given the substantial reduction in grids this year. There must be plenty of original cars sat in garages not being raced so why build some new ones to not race?!

[Delbert]

Allen
No offence taken.
I have enjoyed the challenge of digging into the history and to try to put the cars back to their original livery. It is nice when people come up to you at race meetings and say "I remember seeing this car at XYZ meeting etc"
Gives one the opportunity to call people like John Lepp and chat, which again is rather good fun!

I would be really interested in considered opinions of how this extensive issue could be improved

[driftwood]

Allen please supply a shovel when you want to have a dig at folk- my shovel has broken - too much use i fear!

Yes Delbert where are all the real cars? i suspect half are racing and the rest are sitting in museums and garages in some foreign land where the owner has retired from racing and is out of the loop hence the car is "forgotten" and is only sold when a racer "stumbles" across the car
However the high ( over inflated in many cases) value of the cars deters many guys from buying them and it becomes a bit "elitest"

The sale of the RB collection liberated many cars ( still not sure of we have been beneficial of this to see cars race again or lost the chance to see them all in 1 place?) but i am appalled at the notion of new cars being built and allowed to race borders on fraudulance

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by Delbert

As I say, I think that these heritage sites are potentially a good check and balance and if not in such forms, where do you start?

Here, of course. It's why we created this forum - as a research tool!

Originally Posted by Allenbrown

Am I getting cynical in my old age?

Yes ..... like the rest of us!

Originally Posted by driftwood

- my shovel has broken - too much use i fear!

Hmmm ..... you've broken several, I'd say! Drifty you have much to say which is useful; I just wish that you'd take a little more care over the way you present it! I guess you are used to me editing your posts by now, so that we can all understand them!

Seriously, I thought I'd post this to show that I am still watching and interested. I think that this forum has filled a gaping hole and will continue to enable info to be gathered in order to feed into sites like Allen's. Both he and Simon are right about these heritage sites. They need to ensure that what is being claimed for the histories of the cars that are registered with them is accurate, otherwise they will be providing a seal of approval to cars of dubious heritage and ultimately be tainted by that. Perhaps they should seek verification from my worthy and knowledgeable colleagues by posting on here!

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by John Turner

Perhaps they should seek verification from my worthy and knowledgeable colleagues by posting on here!

Glad to see the Headmaster is keeping a watchful eye on us all!

I would agree with John's sentiment above however I suspect that it actually pays NOT to research a car's History too much in case it ends up being the unused spare!

[driftwood]

it is not that difficult to do car research
1 check car for its idnetitiy on plate gearbox number and any chassi stamps
2 ask for list of all owners drivers
3 look up race results in books autosport (adverts for sale are useful) etc here you find snippets on car at races crashing bursting into flames and melting or being sold to a name on the list of owners
4 collect period photos of the car see the different drivers body changes etc

5 then discuss car with the folk in " the know" as this is where you will get confirmation or derision on the car or the Jackonory tale given with it
6 contact all known owners or mechanics associated with the car to substantiate it all- mechanics often give the tell tale truth about the cars!

[Delbert]

I am clearly out of my depth on this topic but for what it is worth:

I am not sure how long this site has been going but I assume long enough to know whether it has successfully established itself as the FOAK on such matters.

I have to say I still favour any and all chassis's being disclosed publicly - with a disclaimer stating that the info has not been verified etc etc. Atleast with all the chassis's on view people can then narrow their search and chase the "baddies".
Surely better that than many many fakes being built and slipping in unseen in later years. If you create a site that only has verified cars I suspect you are right, that there will be even fewer taking up the challenge

[allenbrown]

This site doesn't pretend to be the FOAK on all things but probably has established itself the best place to bring together the information that we have and put it in the public domain.

Structuring the information and presenting it back in an easily digestible form is not so easy using forum software so 10 Tenths is something augmented by web pages such as OldRacingcars.com's Brabham BT36 page. ORC focuses on original research of its own such as this Chevron B24 page which is the sort of page that really does sort the wheat from the chaff. One day, ORC will do Chevron B19s too but I doubt it will be one day soon.

Allen

[driftwood]

some of the B19 cars built where B16 cars converted up
then chevron built some b19 cars later some of these get made into b21 later b23
if u add up the number of B19 21 23 cars built take the total and divide by 2 you will have a figure closer to the real number of cars that existed in 71-73

I am not going to quote a chassis number here and say its a total fake but Mr W you park next to 1 each month please ask for a list of every owner and you will find a HUGE hole!
your cars are not in doubt as we can trace them over the years- i have a foto of yr 19 parked in 1982-3 in thundersports or hscc paddock
the trail goes backwards easily to 71/2 and can roll forward thru the 80-90`s the 00`s to usa and back
how many others can do this? you will be surprised at how many
so why should yr car and a new car sit side by side with same price tag on the windscreen or even be allowed to race in a period livery it clearly never wore!new cars should not be allowed to do this but sadly basement max screwed us all over with HTP

[slowwe]

Originally Posted by RaceDeck19

I am still waiting to hear from Ed Swart ( his HSR West site is down?). But I did go through the stack of papers and there is a letter from Ed about this car ( B19-10a) and in it he states;

" The B19-10A was my first car that was first in the Cannon colors and for the S.African Springbok series it was the same car but painted yellow/purple for the Wynn's sponsorhip. After the Springbok races, it was shipped back to Holland and I sold it to a guy in England" Ed Swart- March 6 , 2006

I also found a few names of previous owners
Ed Swart
Jeff Mckay (most recent)
Richard Leppla
Amaliftano

Regarding this car does anyone know where I can see a picture of the Wynn's colour scheme. We have started taking the bodywork of my B19 back to gel coat and have discovered a mix of purple and yellow - we plan to sand it back to roughly the colour coat above the gel to see how it was originally painted.

If as we think this is chassis 10 ( and it is without doubt an original chassis) then as far as I can see its provenance prior to the time that someone bought a new chassis (if indeed this is what happened to chassis 10) remains it own - despite what the ever acid and frequently extremely impolite Mr Driftwood has to say.

If we can find a pic of the Wynns colour sceme we know where on the body work to look for the colour changes which will help enormously.

Richard

[driftwood]

no it is the original and discarded B19 car 10 essentially all the old parts taken off the car and the plate was passed across to the new chassis body combo and now in usa and is in essence car B19-71-10
It sat for nigh on 18 years in pieces in Florida in the garage of Amalfatino while he used the rebuilt car prior to selling the car to racedeck19 and then the car was resold to Jeff another poster here who is now selling the car

Richard the facts are there and are not acid and impolite!!

If i have a bar of silver and paint it gold what is it?
dont try to kid people that you have b19# 10
If you want to re assemble the car do so but have the decency to fit a plate that states what it is & not the real car and worse case scenario call it a high number out of sequence or best fit B19-71-10 R to set it apart from the real car that has continued to run for years

[Steve Wilkinson]

We keep revisiting this scenario time after time after time after time after ...

It just so happens that in motor sport people would spend a lot of money upgrading a car rather than even more money on a new car. The problem for us anoracks is that they didn't destroy the discarded bits! Instead some enterprising person came along paid very little money for some scrap bits and hey presto a new car was born!

It is even more annoying that some manufacturers were complicit in this practice. I suppose because they got money for the sale of additional bits to create the new entity.

Can we not once and for all agree that (a) this happened, (b) in an ideal world it wouldn't, and (c) get on with trying to come to terms with what is left without descending into a schoolgirl hissy-fit!