Getting back to more mundane cars, Fords! Isnt it funny that almost all the Cortina Lotus 'replicas' are of the MK I version rather than the MK II. Perhaps the builders of these things imagined themselves 3 wheeling through some corner like Jim Clark, in a beautifully controlled drift, or was it just the fact that there might be a monetary gain down the line somewhere. And why is it that the genuine MK I usually sells for twice the figure of a MK II.....the Jim Clark thing again??? This chassis plate business is not unlike the VCC boys who find a hub-cap from a rare, long disappeared car, and set about it's rebuild, and nobody to my knowledge in the VCC has ever challenged that. As someone said on here a while ago, a lot of vintage cars aren't actually THAT old. I know that a lot of enthusiasts search for years collecting bits, then when they consider they have enough to start a rebuild, or enough of the important bits anyway, they begin. The Maserati Birdcage that we were discussing was started with a few parts-bin pieces that could have come from anywhere, and certainly couldn't be traced to any one particular car. At least with most VCC restorations there is at least 50% of car to begin a rebuild. They may not have come from the same car, but probably from the same factory, and what was able to be made 80 years ago, can certainly be remade today if $$$$$$$ are no object. And here we get back to the value of the completed article. No one, I dont think, is going to replicate a Trabant for instance, as the end result doesn't justify the expense.