[John Turner]

We've touched on the issues of originality, 'bitsas', replicas and the FIA's attempt to address the issue with new sets of historic vehicle papers, in various threads, but I don't think we have discussed directly an issue that Doug Nye has raised in the latest (June) issue of Octane. He asks whether owners of racing cars are going to be prepared to race their valuable originals against the 'continuation' cars now being built by Lola, Chevron and others. These 'moderns' which will be provided with HTP papers and therefore eligible for historic events run by the FIA. He suggests that for other historic events the organising bodies will probably give preference to original cars but where they don't, the owners of original cars will simply stay away, to the detriment of the sport. The point he makes is that a modern replica, however faithfully it adheres to the original in appearance and componentry will be fresher, stronger and faster, and that since their value is far less that the original, they will be raced harder and with less concern for the occasional contact.

It seems to me that a separate class, or better still, separate races, if there are enough built, for the 'continuation' cars would maybe address this problem. We've seen races for replicas (Cobras come to mind) before if I recall correctly. Mind you whether there is room for additional 'historic' classes or races, is another matter. The upshot of the FIA 'clarification, however, is that in their book, a 'modern' car built to original spec. will be allowed to race in historic series! Where that leaves those 'bitsa' cars which have a dubious provenance but contain genuinely original parts, I don't know.

Interestingly, in the same mag, and in a separate piece, Nye highlights an act of vandalism perpetrated by the Italian courts. They ordered (and made sure it happened) the total destruction and meltdown of two 'replica' Maseratis despite the fact that these were of extremely high quality, but worst of all, they contained many original and rare parts, including an engine which was one of only 3 built and raced in the 1956 Mille Miglia. Sheer madness!