F1-1967 Today

[GORDON STREETER]

Engineers just like my mate who made this in his garden shed. Gas powered ,the spare wheel fits in the front or back / single sided rear swing arm and front fork /single telescopic front suspension /stepless automatic transmission and belt driven. WHY because he likes making things !

[rogerwills]

After that, I'm starting to think the 917 and 67F1 car replicas look fantastic......

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by rogerwills

After that, I'm starting to think the 917 and 67F1 car replicas look fantastic......

OK Roger show us what you've made apart from piles of money

[johnh875]

Brilliantly functional Gordon!

[f1-67]

from an engineering point of view top marks -

from an aesthetic point of view - oh dear !

needs to have some 'enclosing ' type bodywork ???

anyway im off to spa next week for a couple of days to give the not historic , 1960s period style ish , mustnt ever race with originals , single seater - a bit of a leg stretch , mallory is a bit short really as havent actually needed 4 th gear yet !!

anyone else going ? its an RMA event -

[eamonn ledwidge]

I like this, how much?????????

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

Engineers just like my mate who made this in his garden shed. Gas powered ,the spare wheel fits in the front or back / single sided rear swing arm and front fork /single telescopic front suspension /stepless automatic transmission and belt driven. WHY because he likes making things !

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by johnh875

Brilliantly functional Gordon!

Google "Dave Akhurst Greenfly" to find out more. Several Bike mags did a feature with a load more pictures and information.

[dtype38]

I've just read through this whole thread and must admit that I'm fascinated by the whole concept of what comprises a "historic" race car.

Mr. Bower may disagree, but its now widely accepted (indeed now written in law) that a car need not be original to be considered genuine. The nature of the changes allowed to a car for it to remain genuine are controlled and must only be made under specific circumstances, but never the less it is possible to completely replace a whole car and for it to remain legally the same car.

All this came up due to a couple of court cases where people had bought cars which they had been lead to believe had completed in historic events, only to find all of the major components had since been replaced. To clarify the situation and prevent futher problems like this, the judge decided to give legal definitions to words such as "original", "genuine", "replica" and "copy". He may have also defined "recreation", but I can't find the reference at the moment.

Anyway, what the judge didn't do was define the term "historic". Not unreasonably I think he found the term simply too subjective to define and left it up to car lovers to decide if the provenance of any particular car made it "historic".

Now my car (on the left) is a copy of a Jaguar D-type. I specifically use the word copy rather than replica because it's a grp body on a steel chassis, and so being structurally very different can't be considered a "replica". It certainly isn't a "kit car" either as this term would suggest I simply assembled it from supplied parts. In reality probably more than half of the car was made from scratch by my own fair hands... so a "kit" it is not! But is it historic?

Now I don't think that's quite so easy to answer as you would think! Let me explain... the engine, drive train, running gear, and quite a few other bits and bobs came from a 1965 Jaguar saloon. Enough of it, in fact, for the DVLA to consider it at least 70% the original car and issue it with a period registration. So legally it's a sixties car. As for it's racing pedigree, well its been campaigned in three different race series since 2002 and has amassed many racing miles at historic tracks like Silverstone, Brands, Donnington, etc etc with a number of race wins under its belt. So now we have a racing car which is legally from the sixties and has a genuine racing pedigree and some success.......

Ok, so I'm teasing the traditionalists a bit here, and no I won't go as far as to suggest that my car could be associated with the "h" word. What I am trying to say though, is that "historic" is a subjective term and that no matter how many owners of original and important cars club together and try and stamp a definition on it, they will fail. The reason is simple. History is written from the importance we place on past events. If sufficient people choose to say that the most important thing about a car is what it looks like, not when it was made, or who used to drive it, or what races its won, then "historic" racing won't be any different from any other sort of racing.

As for the importance of what a car looks like.... then consider the memories of the little boy that walked up to my car in the paddock at Oulton with his eyes wide and said "Wow dad, look at the really old racing car!" And when his dad got the camera out, I lifted the boy up and plonked him in the drivers seat and gave him my winners cap... to keep. I don't think either of them were too worried that it was just a "copy". I also I don't expect they would have got such a photo at an Aston Martin Owners Club race meeting

[terence]

Your right Dtype,I do,but thats not to say that what you have written is not interesting.I have to completely disagree with what the Judge has decided ,re,the originality of total replacement of any given car to the point of only the number plate is the same.I have always sympathetically restored the many restorations I have been entrusted with during my thirty odd years of "being in the game".My view has and always will be that you can replicate any work of art,you can even copy the original signature in the bottom right corner of that piece of art,but it will never be the original.
History is merely events that have happened in the past,so yes,of course you can accredit absolutely anything with it.As history starts after the blink of an eye.
As for the Judge,I wonder who paid him to sum up in the manor he did.

Silverstone Classic 2007, The AMOC/Roy Salvadory paddock. I had exactly the same situation happen at this event,it turned out that the Grandad to the young lads who were showing so much interest in the DB2 I had been entrusted with was one of the original mechanics to work on it in period.!

[dtype38]

Originally Posted by terence bower

Your right Dtype,I do,but thats not to say that what you have written is not interesting.I have to completely disagree with what the Judge has decided ,re,the originality of total replacement of any given car to the point of only the number plate is the same.I have always sympathetically restored the many restorations I have been entrusted with during my thirty odd years of "being in the game".

When considering if you agree with the legal definitions, you need to be very careful what words you use. "..originality of total replacement.." is still a contradiction in terms. For those who are intersted I'll try and summarise the definitions (but I'm not a lawyer so take this as a guide only).

Original : A car which retains all of the components it was first built with except those which would be replaced during normal servicing such as oil, filters, brake pads, tyres etc.

Genuine : A car which may not be original, but has only had parts replaced in the course of its normal use (in the case of a race car this would include major rebuilds due to collision damage or engine failure).

Replica : A car which is substantially made from replacement parts to the same basic design as were fitted to an original. Some parts may be uprated or differ in detail but which do not essentially change the nature of the car.

Copy : A car built from new or old parts to the same general layout and silhoette of an original car, but may differ substantially in detail.

Originally Posted by terence bower

My view has and always will be that you can replicate any work of art,you can even copy the original signature in the bottom right corner of that piece of art,but it will never be the original.

As you can see from those definitions, the requirements for a car to count as "original" pretty much match your own. In fact it is so strict, I think you'll find most of the old ones in museums, not on race tracks. I suspect that most of the cars we see at historic events probably fall into the second catagory. As for "ground up" restoration cars, sadly for the owners I think they pretty much fall into the third catagory. Not that I would dare tell any of them

If anyone has the full legal findings and can see any mistakes in my guide, please feel free to post corrections.