People trading and selling logbooks.

[brown dog]

Recently a person I know bought an old DTM race car, the logbook was not with it, as is the case in a lot of these situations. Someone knew someone who knew someone who had this logbook in his possession. This person said he wanted 7000€ for the logbook.The owner of the car said no to that.

In my opinion the logbook belongs to the car, and should not be traded or sold. If found it should be handed back. Is it even legal to sell/trade these?

I paid 1200€ to get the original logbook for my race car back, the trader even offered me other logbooks at the same time, which I declined. I think it is bloody extortion, but was prepared to cough to get it back.

What are other peoples thoughts on this matter? Am I being unreasonable in my views?

Conrad Timms

[DAVID PATERSON]

In Australia, the CAMS logbooks are the property of CAMS and therefore, theoretically, you can't sell them.

[morninggents]

The answer is ........ don't buy a car without a logbook. Problem solved.

[zefarelly]

I think its commoinly known as ringing.

not helped ( for historics) by the FiA letting people build an 'historic race car' and get an HTP without the relevant Log book.

madness.

[Mike Bell]

There are log books, as in road registration documents, and 'log books', as used in some countries for race / rally cars to record scrutineering and race history.

Presume we are talking of the former?

[zefarelly]

no idea about the continent, it seems easier in certain other countries, but when I say log book I mean a DVLA registered document for a road legal real car that exists, allegedly

'log books' issued by clubs are worthless outside a very small circle, although I'm aware they get used to try to up the value of winning cars, but that's another debate.

[Colin McKay]

In the UK it's possible to get a new V5C so long as you can prove you are the legitimate owner of the car - this despite the 'log book' recording the keeper and not necessarily the owner of the vehicle. I think the vehicle in question has to be MoT'd in order to do this which could exclude many race cars, but in some cases it might be cheaper to do the mods and put it through an MoT than pay £000's to a previous owner for the privilege.

[zefarelly]

I think this is reference to period log books for no other reason than adding 'history'*

* value


if a reasonable Cortina race car costs 40-50k to build and a log book for an LC is £5k but the cars suddenly worth £60k not 40k because its a real one, although the chassis No is still the same as the 1200 delux you started with

having said that its only relevant to certain marques.

[Robyn Slater]

Didn't all Lotus Cortina's begin with a 1200 deluxe??

[DAVID PATERSON]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

There are log books, as in road registration documents, and 'log books', as used in some countries for race / rally cars to record scrutineering and race history.

Presume we are talking of the former?

I assumed we are talking of the latter...

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by DAVID PATERSON

I assumed we are talking of the latter...

We could well be, as the OP is from NZ. Unfortunately the UK doesn't use race car log books, although some other motorsport does. It is possibly not exactly as you have, though. Info in MSA Blue Book HERE . Interestingly the CCLB always belongs to the MSA so the situation OP refers to shouldn't happen....

I can see that a car with period race history but without logbook relating to it would be devalued, so surely it should be kept with the car, and would be of no value to anyone else?

[Tel 911S]

With reference to the UK car road logbook .
Some of the original " works " cars have been sold to other countries . And in some countries it is a condition of import that the car has to have a " local " registration . So the original registrations were retained by the DVLA .

A few years ago the DVLA had a sale of old registrations , & I know of people who bought [ at that time unused ] numbers from old works cars . They then built a replica car to the original spec and , [ in some cases ] claimed it was the car .
So there are now people claiming they have original cars which they hope are worth a lot of money , but in some cases is a duplicate of the same car which is somewhere else .

[terence]

So it goes full circle then! Its a practice thats gone on for many years and while some owners can see large profits, it will continue.