Originally Posted by chop:
Ok if we are talking about old cars and restoring them, I have a question. Lets say I find the sprint car that Steve won the 1st World of Outlaw championship. It is in bad shape, has no motor. I make a new frame, copying the rusted, bent up old frame. I put together a new engine to go in it. Find a same year rear end, wheels, tires, shocks. Copy the bent up wing. Find a fuel cell tank that matches the one that should be on the car. Can I really say that it is the real car anymore? If I sell the car,but keep the old frame, did I really sell the car? With an old race car. What can you replace before it is not really the original car?
I guess that depends on a persons opinion. People restore muscle cars with little more than an original firewall and someone will still buy it. My opinion on a race car would be at least the original chassis since it's hand built and any other part that was hand built or at least remade by the original builder and the rest would have to be original period correct manufactured parts. I imagine most collector race cars are considerably less than 100% original, Most people didn't think to save them or they were crashed and rebuilt multiple times before being retired. Bob Trostle posted a picture of a car he fixed that was one of his, I would still consider it an original for the most part since he did the work. Here is what his post said
"here it is all done and ready to go to Australia this is chassis #344 built in June 1985 this car was driven by Max Dumesney that summer and during the Knoxville Nationals Max beat Doug Wolfgang in the Race of States that was the only race Doug lost in about 20 `races I sold this car to Butch Hanssen from Sioux Falls he raced it for 2 years then sold it to someone else who crashed and I got it in 1990 so it was about time I did something with it Lucky John Cooley is the proud owner"