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

[driftwood]

At the risk of incurring Johns displeasure (!) Simon you are a coward!
If yr arguing about chassis body = a car then what do engine gearbox constitute?
there was a judges ruling on Old number 1 Bentley over who had what
is the 3 out of 5 parts rule still used?

OK i have 4wd March 791 F1 car 2 where made & number 1 is in Uncles Toms museum the other was "misplaced" found in my dads barn with no chassi plate fitted
i have traced all previous owners 3 raced it 2 didnt plus it had replacement chassis with owner no 2 after big shunt ( fotos in race mag) plate never re fitted car then changes bodywork shape to Lotus 80 in the rebuild races again then its lost for 20 years
it still has the correct gearbox number on the case correct brake suspension etc
can i fit a newly pressed chassis plate stamped 791/2 to this car with correct number?

John the chassis in question does NOT have the chassis number fitted it has the AM number stamp= 2 different things

For the Sun readers
Probity denotes unimpeachable honesty and virtue
With Probity in mind is this pile of old B19 parts the real car ?

Allen maybe the B19 should have been called a Rabbit!

[Simon Hadfield]

Once you get into mass produced engines and gearboxes I feel they add little to the whole (although its always nice to have them....these are not Bugattis where the car was an "holistic" form). the Bentley ruling surely gave form to Allen's rule of thumb quoted above, that lineage is the most important factor. For your March it is what it is - why does it need a chassis plate? The Arch Motors number still denotes an entity, those parts are still the original, honest and virtuous parts of the now no longer original car!

[John Turner]

I'm In fact, I haven't spent so much time in the archive for ages. I'm happy to move or copy some of these posts to a new thread and stick it at the top of this forum, if it helps and/or you wish to develop the discussion beyond B19s.

[Dan Rear]

Whats a March 791 drifty??

[driftwood]

with regard to the engine i accept they blow up get scrapped/sold etc so can easily be taken out of the equation

a gearbox with its correct # adds to the originality of the car being the real deal in the event of an absent VIN tag but are NOT the defining evidence just add to the authenticity/probity ( we must use this word as it has been allocated to the thread) of the vehicle

However in the harsh reality of the day this pile of parts is rebuild and sitting in pitlane for £100k & can do pole position times are you going to be parted from your money or are you going to say hang on this aint right
the car is in usa with the original plate and the running gear swapped across to new chassis all FROM the owner who once had the plate and parts fitted to this old chassis

when the pile of old parts are for sale at a sum of money that your kids pocket money can acquire today you are easily parted from your money
(regardles of the reality that you will spend £50+k assembling the thing fit motor etc) and could have bought a car with no "dramas" attached for not much more

Yes we can call chevron cars/vin order a new model B19 21 23 car and go and race it but these cars will not be trying to say look im 1 of the original chassis numbered cars

I can buy a Lacoste T shirt offical branding for £15 and i can buy a copy shiort in HK for £4 or less- it looks the same
If you want the real McCoy with no hassle you pay the money for the right thing but you would not pay the full market money for something that is not right

[driftwood]

Whats a March 791 drifty??it is the car my uncle designed and built to break the outright lap record at Mallory park was to be driven by warren booth or Kim mather but he could not agree what fee to pay the driver and yes i am extracting the michael

[Dr. Alexander Lienau]

as a lawyer I learned early that it makes no sense to invent your own rules or laws, when there are already rules or laws to follow, but it is always helpful to know the rules before you start talking.

For our B19 discussion it is helpful to know that there is a FIA, with Mr. Max Mosley on top position, who has decided that they will offer an "official" history check and give you a Historic certificate.

The pocedure is time and money intensive and makes only sense for chassis owners, who can proove at minimum two thinks:

(1) History of the car from day one and from owner to owner prooved by original papers (not simple copies, with doubtful "quality"). The FIA makes a lot of cross checks especially contacting the previous owners. If after all that procedure there is from the paper side no doubt, the FIA publishes on their webside your application and especially the number you pretend to have. Only when the papers work is done and no one is argueing against your number than it comes the second step, meaning

(2) showing your car to an experienced FIA approved inspector. That inspector will visit you and will check everything and especially the chassis and the chassis number and takes all time he feels it is necessary.

(3) after that there will be a written "opinion" concerning the car and a international committee who decides if you get the FIA certificate or not.

All that can easily take two years of your time and not a small amount of money, but it is a clear and quite transparent procedure. Everybody who thinks, that he owns for sure the genuine car --chassis (may be+chassis plate) + history chain can and should apply.

If you only talk and try by talking to get the recognition that you own the genuine car you only generate doubts about your car. Go the direct way with your car and chassis Number to the FIA, ask for the certificate and if they grant it to you and your car I am nearly 100 % convinced no second chassis or what ever old or new part will ever get the recognition as the genuine car, because nobody else will have the complete set of papers.

Represent to all what you have and if your car deserves it, it will get easily the recognition as "the genuine Car Chassis No. 71-19-xy

[Dan Rear]

Originally Posted by driftwood

Whats a March 791 drifty??it is the car my uncle designed and built to break the outright lap record at Mallory park was to be driven by warren booth or Kim mather but he could not agree what fee to pay the driver and yes i am extracting the michael

I'd have been cheaper than Warren or Kim, and if the 791 was as good as you say, I'd have gone round Mallory in well under 40secs....

I realise you weren't serious, but thought you may have been referring to the Roy Lane '79S'. How many of these were made!!

[allenbrown]

The case of Bentley No 1 is useful as I think Justice Otton in that case used the "continuous footprint" phrase - i.e. if a car is dismantled into a set of parts at some stage in its life, you can't put a subset of those parts back together later and call it the same car. However, you can replace parts as you go along - as had happened on the Bentley.

The Bugatti chaps have the three out of five rule but that doesn't apply to cars from the 1960s/1970s era where engine and transmission were designed to be interchangeable. I don't see any use for that rule when talking about B19s.

[allenbrown]

If the FIA Heritage Certificate is going to be "advertised" here, then I think it is appropriate to discuss ORC's own authentication service. Note that the FIA will sign off a history but they won't do the research for you. That's what we do. I might post up a few sample dossiers if anyone's interested. I think Chris and I have done over 20 between us by now.

http://www.oldracingcars.com/services/dossiers/

Allen

[Dr. Alexander Lienau]

there is no substitute for the original article, that is the content of our discussion . That rule applies as well to certificates. Somebody elese may be happy with the second best, for me compromise is not an option thats why I applied for the FIA Heritage Certicate and did buy myself a certificate.

[driftwood]

Dan- only 1 79S was built a 782 in essence with dfv fitted
Allen im glad you are not female i would be worried that you will flash me your "Earthas" and shout out "how about it big boy" !

With regards to the Dr`s comments re FIA- where are they qualified to check cars ? Do they have a team of race car fans/ Anoraks looking into the cars history doing own independant research looking through websites for fotos race results AS adverts for cars for sale?- I doubt it so how can they qualify as the be all and end all to decide on cars originality and history or FIA papers
Yes they can consider the facts as presented by the car owner making the application but they can get it wrong becaus ethey are not talking to people for instance like us on this forum ( some are qualified to make comments some have first hand info on the car in question to maybe say its not real because i made it/repaired it or it is real because my father looked after the car for 30 years for all 3 previous owners)

There is alot of info out in the free world that FIA will not get unless it is presented with teh cars application and to be frank the car owner has a vested interest in getting the papers so it will be reasonable to say teh owner may lie and cheat
If you shot your mechanic dead in the garage no one saw you will you stand up in court and say yes i did it or no i did not do it if you will get 30 years in prison?
Bottom line is everyone is here for their own self gain however IF you choose to apply for papers or even fit a plate to a car that has obvious doubts expect to have problems with people protesting - it is fair to say that if anyone has doubts they can protest NOT just the car owner of the chassi number in question

If basement max had not fiddled with the process we would not be having this debate and it would be far simpler to confirm what cars are real and whats not real & there would be no BS about continuation cars being "real" cars
In some ways the ozzie CAMS papers is probably the right way to go about things however they are a pain the ass about motors in chassis
ie if car 9 had v17 ferrari motor u cannot fit BDG into it because its easier /cheaper to buy- you must fit the motor THAT chassi numbered car ran

as we already see certain f2/Gp6 cars running BDG when they should be FVC or BMW
all the 1600 F2 cars would be stuffed with BDA when it should be FVA

now i hear of a march 75s that always was 2litre having DFV fitted!!

[Dr. Alexander Lienau]

everybody can have his opinion concerning the FIA and the heritage certificate.

It is true that the applicant has to bring up the complete documentation by himself and it is true that the FIA do not tell you the exact rules what exactly they expect from you. In addition an applicant has a problem, if the certificate for his car is "official" refused. The FIA makes own research, but they do not tell you what they do. The FIA sends you questions and you have to reply. In summary it is no easy to fake because you never know what the FIA knows and if they get the impression you are trying to fraud them you for sure will not have to much pleasure with Mr. Mosley.

All that means a simple research and the the memories of some people are clearly not enough. You have to bring up the complete picture painted with original documents, which you can nowhere get without from the orginal owners and persons involved with the car. Be sure that the FIA do not accept a case where every paper is brand knew and people asure that the car is the genuine article only by saying and some doubtful copies and other "statements". You need a lot more as I explained earlier:
-clear chain of owners;
-papers of the car from period supporting that chain, for expl. results with the name of the owners, stamps in the papers of the car, prooving that the car took part for example from the scrutineers of the event
-purchase and sale contracts from owner to owner
-article in major magazines and newspapers telling the story of the car, which are a mimimum twenty years old or better older (a time when not to many people where interested in the historic racing cars);
-old pictures from the car in the different colours or with the modifications in period etc.

Absolute no important thing for the history of a B19 is the engine. My car started with a BMW 1.6 Litre engine, changed in the first year to a FVC than back to a 2.0 BMW M12, than a BDG 1.990 than back to a BDA 1.300 for winning the german hillclimb championship in the year 1980(!) in the class up to 1.300.

You need a day to change the engine in a B19 and you usually use the best engine for the series where you are racing the car as the car is used to be used since 37 years year after year engines come and (very expensive) go.

[Simon Hadfield]

As someone intimately involved in all aspects of this I can tell you that i would rather have one car with Allen's documentation than five with the heritage certificates.....and they use Allen's site as a referral! Frankly my view is rather that if you know you have the real thing why do you need the security blanket of someone else to tell you what you already know.

[Simon Hadfield]

And as Drifty says tell the Australians that the engine your car had is not important! I was on an FIA working group and the Australasian representative (a Mr Dhoinville I think) stated that he and his membership were jolly glad to have been involved in the discussions but the way they did and were doing things was just fine and they would NOT be changing anytime soon! Men rather after my own heart.

[driftwood]

I do feel if car 17 had the v17 ferrari but the other 16 cars used BMW m12 FVC hart 420R i see no reason why u cannot fit 1 of the correct period motors to the car
its unlikley 5 other owners will want to fit the ferrari motor due to cost rarity possibly fragility of the motor better to run a motor that is cost effective performs well and reliably but i do think fitting BDG into cars that never used them is bad why not fit cossy YB or a duratec

The ozzie approach is also flawed if you happen to want to buy a car/chassis number that was built in period but didnt race in international race ie f2 F1 or Gp6
i know of 2 or 3 f2 cars that do not have european F2 race history but raced elsewhere or sprints hillclimbs in period
under the oz rules these cars are excluded which frankly is balllx and shows up the bad points of their system even to the point that some **** who was not even up here in period starts telling them they have the wrong colour wheels on their car or wrong type of seat
Racing is for fun and need sto be kept in mind but i oppose cars being created form piles of old obsolete race cars and given the ID of another car and im not in favour of the continuation cars
why go buy a fake when there ar eplenty of cars out there to buy that are from the period of when motor racing was dangerous and sex was safe!

[Delbert]

We could run a small town on the amount of energy being expended in this thread which would improve our carbon foot print! I hesistate to enter the fray again but here goes..............

Is there common agreement (naive of me I know) that the more information available in the public domain the better? Surely with suitable health warnings about "no guarantee about claims made" etc we would all be better served by having open disclosure.

Certainly potential buyers would be able to see whether there is 1, 2 or more potential claimants to any particular chassis provenance and therefore would be well advised to make suitable enquiry.

Surely the growth in new chassis is a by product of profit and that will only be made if the cars can be sold (by dealers or privateers) so only the best will find a market at a price. To build a B19 from scratch must be £100k+ so there is not a huge profit to be made judging by current prices, certainly not in the current market. And if profit is the goal there are other more profitable things to build.
Sticking a copy of Motorsport down my trousers awaiting another beating

[driftwood]

I know where yr coming from but sadly there are people out there who set out to blatantly deceive folk. However it is far harder to create a car and give it "history" of a car that has been crashed destroyed or a car "lost" in midst of time to a museum in outer mongolia due to the interweb allowing the car owners to talk and race fans such as allen brown and his ORC site to publish well researched facts and also some of us wannabe despots to pour scorn on ( with validating info) car claims that the owner/claimant has to then proove us wrong

Pick any car chassis number from any category and i can give you accurate info on it in 20 mins and even talk with the owner and previous owners to clarify any info and get extar info like i crashed that car and scrapped it or rewelded the upper front tube does it still have the weld on the car?

however some car owners start to believe their own BS and when they become dilussional and not listen to what those in the know have to say the car will have big problems
you cannot beat a chain of owners with info fotos AS adverts race reports to show a cars history plus there are guys who saw the car crash melt into a pile of molten metal to proove what cars where writen off plus mechanics from the factory or race team who can also say yep it was so badly damaged we scrapped it and ordered a new car new plate etc
IF chevron Lola want to build continuation cars the numbers will not be of period built cars and yes i know someone will take a new car and try and make it "old" to gain a sale with possibly a profit but the party that earn the profit is either the car maker or the spanner man assembling it!
Never made a profit from a car ive rebuilt and raced only on the car i bought yesterday and sold tomorrow without wiping the dirt off
I bet those who say they bought old car to restore spent money on it etc have made a profit have not made a real profit when you take into account the time cost of money effort involved and as you say there are better ways to make a profit

[Delbert]

All noted and understood. Glad the answer was so simple, just remind me what it was again!

[allard]

category wrc.
chassis number p1x 2285
tell me what you know

[Chris Townsend]

Lola T360
HU19
...

[allenbrown]

Originally Posted by Dr. Alexander Lienau

there is no substitute for the original article, that is the content of our discussion . That rule applies as well to certificates. Somebody elese may be happy with the second best, for me compromise is not an option thats why I applied for the FIA Heritage Certicate and did buy myself a certificate.

Having counted to ten before responding, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn't really read my post. The ORC dossiers are not seen as a competitor to Heritage Certificates; well not by me anyway. HCs require you to do the research yourself and that's where the dossiers prove useful.

Allen

[driftwood]

I also think it is easier for someone like Allen and ORC to do the dossiers as they have NO vested interest in manipulating the facts and info like a car owner has
PLUS he can obtain info from various people who where present in period or worke don teh cars over time and he can decifer the truth from the BS and the contradictory
Also he has many years of race car mags from uk france italy usa etc etc to draw from which a car owner would never acquire to proove a cars history add to this his contacts (some charming and handsome like me) some foreign that can give info on a local basis ie mountain races and photos professional & amatuer photographers who went to many race events

No heritage site will do this -FIA will not go to these lengths and it will be hard for a car owner to get as much info as ORC can acquire over time
It would be money well spent employing ORC when you want to chase the HC and FIA papers of race cars
and yes its a pint of guinness allen !

[allenbrown]

Thanks for that Drifty. I did not intend any slight on HCs as I think they are an excellent service and I have always been supportive of what Jeremy has achieved. The only point I was intending to make is that the FIA won't do the research for you; they just do due diligence and then agree it (or disagree, as the case may be). What Chris and I do is fully research the car and document all the facts. It's a complimentary service.

[Simon Hadfield]

I think there are two major problems with HCs, firstly as my maths teacher used to state "I want to see the working out" - secret squirel systems do not invite open discussion - and secondly a fair number of HC owners now feel they have the definitive article, the car as it stands today is absolutely as it should be - it must be ,I have the HC to prove it. As the good Doctor above proves you can get HCs even when the the car has an engine it never ran and stands on tyres it was not built to use. Surely these papers could (and as far as I understood should) have been a major force for the good of historic racing, a major opportunity has been missed.....