Quote Originally Posted by AMCO72 View Post
Hi there aussiemonza.....by the tone of your letter, you are trying to convince yourself and everyone else, that what you have in these two cars is something special; something worth having; something with history. Well, they certainly have history, a bit checkered in places, but you have done some serious research on them and come up with the continuous history lists that you have. The best thing we could say about the 2 cars is that they are the ONLY cars that can CLAIM to be the Brock and Co cars that competed back then. A bit like Old Number One Bentley......As it is today, it is NOT the Bentley that raced in the 20's and 30's, but it is the ONLY Bentley that can claim to be Old No 1.... Mr Justice Otton's summing up of that case, involving Hubbard and Middlebridge Scimitar, as you say makes for interesting reading, and had far reaching effects in the Classic car world. The difference between your cars and old No1 is that at least the Bentley had a chassis, most of which has survived, albeit somewhat modified, whereas your cars, once the body gets changed so does the chassis, and you say both have been re-bodied. So your cars are NOT the bodies,the engines,the seats, the windscreens etc that Mr Brock and Co sat behind, and of course as any race car ages these things become even more unlikely. I have got Michael Hay's book on old No1, my email address is bentley6@......and I have had an interest in these old war-horses for longer than I dare think. You are lucky that you have been able to trace these histories, as with most race cars they just get dumped as soon as they become uncompetitive. Continuous history is the basis for evaluating a classic race car, and Justice Otton, who wasn't a car enthusiast as such, didn't let a whole lot of market talk get in the way of his verdict.....in other words he approached it with no preconcieved ideas. He was very brave, I think, as there was some BIG money talking here. I appreciate that you just want to get the cars right, and I say, go for it.
Your on it AMCO72. I can only claim "authenticity" not "Original" and a clear line of history.

"The difference between your cars and old No1 is that at least the Bentley had a chassis" is correct though No1 did get a new chassis in 1931/32.

I have responded on another forum that production based race cars are treated the same as "traditional" race cars. That is that the repair of a production based race car that uses a new body shell is acceptable. As an example, say a Lola F5000 has a big crash. It is rebuilt using a new tub, bodywork, suspension, wheels and rear wing. When it next races, is it a new car or the original car repaired?