The (one and only) '0846' Debate Thread

Oops on my part. Lets try that again. By once I meant that the continous history of Jims car returns to 0846, thus yes Jims car is 0846 as it has evolved over time.

Thus maybe I should not have said 'WAS ONCE' 0846 but in away I stand by the 'WAS ONCE', ie. 0846 was once a P3 as Ferrari built it, then converted into a P4 by Ferrari ... it is still the same car, then it was converted into whatever Piper felt like that day (note his P2 runs as a Can Am, or P2 depending on how he feels that day ... still the same car) ... and now Jim is restoring it to (I believe) a P4 style.

Thus 0846 does not mean that it always has to be a P3 as Ferrari built it. No if Jim decided tomorrow that he wanted to change the body to look like a F40 ... the car would still be 0846 and the same car, just look different.

I am saying that no matter how many changes, even if it was made into a truck that is 0846's continous history as a car made by Ferrari, passed to Piper after Le Mans and now to Jim. It is exactly the same as an axe. It does not matter how many components (even chassis') have been changed that car has been considered by all over time to the same car ...

Grandpa's ax is still Grandpa's ax, it just has been repaired many times. The same thing occurs with race cars as the wear out just as fast and it makes it extremely complicated.

Do you honestly think that the extremely valuable P3 Alfa Romeos still have their same chassis, engines, gearboxes, diffs (note the plural as they have 2) as they started out in life when built by Alfa Romeo (or Ferrari). Ofcourse not, just like the axe (in Australia , not ax (unless you are playing scrabble )), these components have been changed over time as they wore out and the car has continued ...

Thus IMO Jim's car is 0846 in its current evolution of life. Now because the history is unclear in Pipers ownership, to prove the continous history of 0846 Jim does need to prove that some major components are from 0846.

If Piper had clearly documented that he had bought 0846 instead of playing shady games as he likes doing (after all, most racing drivers are usually good wheeler and dealers because racing is expensive ... Piper is a master of this) then it would not matter if he had replaced the chassis at some stage and kept compaining the car as 0846, and then later made a new body and again kept compaining the car as 0846, etc. the continuous modification history would have been there for all to see ... but he didn't. What a shame. In the end any car (even his 250/275LM) bought from Piper has to be considered a storied car, because he loved swapping things around ... and God only knows what you would end up with.

Pete

EDIT: In conclusion Horsefly I agree with you, yes Jim's car (maybe) was once 0846. The difference is that I do not believe it is now a replica, it is just 0846 evolved, as all race cars do.

I have built my own amature race cars, and I can very much tell you that they never, ever stay the same. After the first season you pull the thing in to the garage and rectify something that was possibly costing you time, or change the design because you think you might have found something that will make it faster. This might involve cutting out half the chassis and making a different design to say lower the suspension mounting points.

To you that would mean the car is lost, but to me the car still exists it just has been modified. Ferrari and Piper are racers, they do not just build a car and sit back and race it. If they change their minds or think they can gain some performance, out comes the gas axe and welding gear and look out car here they come. That is why 0846 was converted from a P3 to a P4, not just to look pretty but to be more competitive, because Ferrari learnt something.

EDIT2: Horsefly please justify your replica comment. I would like to understand why you think it is a replica now.

Jim has not attempted to replicate any part of 0846's history, if he had wanted to do that he would made a P3 spider, or a P3/4 spider. What he has done is bought 0846 as Piper had compained it (I believe it wore a P3 Spider body ...) and has instead decided that 0846 will now wear a P4 Coupe body.

If he had wanted to make a replica he then would have chosen 0856 as the chassis number to replicate.

The dictionary definition of 'replica' means to make a copy of something. Again Jim has not done that, he has simply reconfigured 0846 ... infact I think Jim's car will be the only car in the world that has exactly that configuration of body work, engine and gearbox.

 

Check this out for some really good views of a ZF 5DS25:

http://www.lotus30.com/Engineering/ZF-Gearbox.html

 

With friend SL71-32

 

Holy fnck!@! . Awesome. She is whole once again ...

Pete

 

Thus from this article we can see out of all the racing Ferraris built that are in a position to race only 25 cars, yes that few, are close enough to how they left the factory for the snobs (er, dickhead Italian fools at Ferrari Spa IMO) to certify them as Ferraris.

Enzo Ferrari would piss all over these fools for being such wankers about certification. Race Ferraris are fncken race cars and should be treated as such, and thus changes are okay (as long as they are documented).

I even believe Ferrari Spa will not certify their road cars unless all the numbers match. They obviously have their head up their arse because everybody that has worked in auto repairs knows that many times replacing engines is the cheapest way to keep the car going, and when these old Ferraris were near new and not collectable NORMAL maintenance occurred, and now Ferrari Spa are getting all up tight about it.

Pathetic IMO.
Pete

 

Truly magnificent. These cars are gorgeous all the way to the bone.
Can't wait to hear her take a breath.
Many thanks
rt

 

Horsefly,

For fun look at the history of this Ferrari:

Look at the modifications over its life ... is this car now a replica in your opinion, because it isn't IMO, its just had modifications.

I even found cars where the chassis number was restamped another number by Ferrari.

I'm sure if I look for long enough I will find a genuine Ferrari that has had its chassis replaced ... thus we are back to the axe theory .

Pete

 

F-chat members need to check out this web site. Somebody else is already claiming to possess P4 Ferrari serial number 0846. They are saying that they're car IS 0846. Not "pieces of the remains of 0846" as Jim has indicated to F-chat members that his car contains, but they are saying that their car IS 0846. His member number is J446. Check it out:http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB1&Number=201602&Forum=,All_Forums,&Words=&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=201344&Search=true&where=&Name=8463&daterange=&newerval=&newertype=&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post201602

He even states that "This is 0846. It finished First at Daytona in 67"

Sounds like somebody is 100% sure that their car is authentic and not just composed of "pieces of the remains of 0846".

 

Um, Einstein... Who the f_ck do you think OWNS Duesenberg Chassis #: J446...? Stop with the Carl Marx anti-fat cat crap, Arlie... It's HORSE sh_t...

 

LOL Horsefly you are really funny today , thanks for the laugh.

Pete

 

Up tight maybe, but perhaps they finally realized that they were hosting a "Replica Racing Festival" after all was said and done. I was thinking about hosting a "Grandpa's Ax Festival", but we ran out of replacement handles and repro ax heads!

 

I'll have to give up, as this is going to drive me nuts.

I still cannot see how you can conclude that modifying a race car makes it a replica?

Anyway as I can see that you and I will never agree on this, and that as far as you are concerned there are NO genuine cars in the world, except todays new production run, I will drop this subject and agree to disagree.

While I do not mind leaving our discussion at this point, I really do think that this is a serious issue for old race car collectors.

Basically what Ferrari Spa and you are saying is that if the car was ever raced it is not original ... how pathetic is that. Why don't we just collect paintings?

There is one 250GTO that has had a new body I believe and many refer to it as a replica. That is crazy IMO. Yes the body is a replica, but the rest of the car isn't. That standard makes every single GTO a replica because they all have had repairs to their body.

It is a strange world we live in ... especially because according to you I own a replica Toyota Tarago (a people mover BTW) as I have found masking tape on her, thus she has been repaired and painted. Once upon of time I would have laughed at the thought that somebody would have replicated a modern Toyota, but heh now I am driving one.

I also realise that I have never owned a genuine car in my life, because I am not rich enough to buy brand new, thus all my cars have had maintenance. Even the cars that I built, I changed details on thus they became replicas (funny that because they were a one of a kind, thus I guess there are fools out there trying to find the original that I replicated ... hahaha).

Oh well, I feel very strange because this concept has just turned my world upside down ... I no longer understand cars at all!

Pete

ps: Horsefly what happens when I repair a piece of furniture, does it now become a replica?

What happens, for example, when the hand railing out the front of my house breaks and I have to weld it back together ... have I just replicated it?

I'm so confused, I used to think I repaired things, now I am some sort of replicating machine ...

 

I have a question. What does the term Re-bodied mean? And does it have any bearing on a car being original or a replica?

 

yummy!

(kind of makes all the hissing and spitting on the other threads seem, umm, beside the point?)

 

PSK, do not fear. Logic is at hand. I don't think that a car is not "original" or "authentic" just because it has been repaired. As I stated in one of my earlier postings, IN MY OPINION, a car should have at least 50% of its original body and 50% of its original frame to be considered the original car. The engine is almost what the insurance companies would call a "normal wear" item. But bodies and frames are not "normal wear" items. Unless there is a bad wreck or fire, bodies and frames should last indefinately. So I think that my theory is pretty sound and would allow for repair of original authentic cars without letting the "bloodline" get thin from bogus replicas. As for all those Ferrari "rebodys" like Drogo and others, the waters get murky. Those type of rebodys would basically allow any person to drop any body on an original Ferrari frame and still claim that it is a Ferrari. If that is acceptable, then I will continue my search for a scrap Lusso frame to install a fiberglass kit car body on it that I have. It looks just like a Drogo. What's good for the snobby goose should also be good for the common gander.

 

That is a good question.

My understanding is that Ferrari used to do this commonly in the older days, and thus I would have to assume if Ferrari did the rebody then the car is original. After all the term original seems to mean that only Ferrari can have made it like that.

But if you or I rebodied a Ferrari then it would be some sort of replica (based on Horsefly's definition), but to me if the body was to the same style it would be repaired (to be noted in the cars documentation, like an engine swap).

Hopefully Horsefly will answer ...

Pete

 

Excuse me but if Drogo,Scaglieti, etc did the re-body it would be a different situation would it not?

 

Yes it is still a Ferrari, thus the common gander is still in with a chance. The reason everbody gets excited about Drogos is that they are GOOD rebodies.

Now if you or I bought a 360 and decided we did not like the styling and rebodied it, it would still be a 360 Ferrari. Now if we did an awesome job of it then it might actually increase the value of the car ...

In some cases I believe Drogo rebodies have been rebodied back to be as original because the current owner did not like the Drogo style or though the cars history as the original shape was more interesting ...

There are plenty of rebodied Ferraris that suck. Even some by professional styling houses like Pininfarina. Those cars values I imagine change significantly whether the intended purchaser gets all weak in the knees about having something different and unique or not. Others like you and I, look at them and go YUCK and run away ...

Pete

 

But my opinion remains constant, if the body is more than 50% original, it is authentic. Under 50%, then it's a replica. Sorry if that ruffles feathers, but that's just my worthless opinion. And you statement about "Ferrari" doing the rebodies starts to really get into a debateable area that has been argued before. What happens when Scaglietti or Fantuzi, original suppliers of Ferrari bodies, rebodies a Ferrari? If the Ferrari factory didn't actually request or submit a work order for the job, then it's just a "wildcat" rebody that is not officially sanctioned by the Ferrari factory. Therefore, it is no more official than if you or I did the same thing in our own garage. Therefore, it must be a replica. Or more correctly, a mongrel, or perhaps an original creation that was born outside of the Ferrari factory. So it must be taken on its own merits of performance and artistic qualities.

 

Well here we are getting in to time lines and again continuous history.

Lets for example say that PSk and Horsefly rebodied that 360 Ferrari. We entered that 360 Ferrari in Le Mans in 2005. Amazingly this car won, largely thanks to the clever styling giving the car huge performance

This car now has interesting and valuable history as a Le Mans winner.

Thus when we talk about Drogo, Scaglieti rebodies most of the time these rebodies occured due to a racing accident or because the owner of the car wanted something special to increase on track performance. Those rebodied cars (in many cases) then went on and created their own history in that new shape.

I think that some cars history far outweighs what they are technically, ie. a car that Marolyn Monroe (sp?) drove or an ex Elvis car, would be worth more than a car that PSk used to own. Thus history is important. As above if the rebodied car was interesting and performed well or had famous owners then it would be worth more.

Pete

 

No because they were not replicating anything ... thus I agree with your mongrel term, but not a replica after all the rest of the car (well over your 50%) is genuine.

Pete

EDIT: I'm also relieved that I am not driving around in a Toyota replica ... that would be seriously embarrassing .

I also will have to do some maths on my Alfa Romeo GTV shell to see if more than 50% still remains ...

 

No Pete, you didn't follow my patented formula. In order to be original, both 50% of the body *AND* 50% of the frame must be original. So if ANYBODY does a rebody, then 100% of the original body is now missing, therefore the resulting creation must be classified as non-original, non-authentic, a mongrel, a work of art, or whatever.

Enough debate for me today. More tomorrow.

 

Minor miscommunication, I meant the WHOLE car should be refered to as a mongrel.

Pete
ps: My God we agree .

 

Nice pics of great cars Jim.
That Lola T70 looks real sharp.

I see a licence plate. Is that a street driven car? Or should I say, can you drive it on the street?

I see you reside in NYC. I live on the Island. It would be wild to see one go by on the LIE. I'll be watching.

Ed

 

Guess what my work computers new wall paper is ...

Pete