Remember the restored race car orig. found folded in half & buried on a farm?

There was a Mercedes 540K roadster found walled up at the back of a butcher's shop in Wolverhampton. I think the roof had collapsed on it and it was in a pretty bad state.

I also remember that there was an AutoUnion rear engine 30's race car (those things are still fast now) found in bits in Russia. A farmer had used the chassis and rear axle as a horse drawn cart and the engine had been cut into pieces. It was restored to museum quality once they got it out of Russia.

I hear there are some incredibly valuable and important cars languishing in Cuba.

 

An English land speed record car from the '20s called "Babs", powered by a 27-liter aircraft engine, was buried in the sand at a beach where it had crashed and killed its driver. It was dug up and restored, I think within the last 10 years.

There was also a Ferrari sports racing car -- maybe the Lou Brero car -- that was buried by its owner, and subsequently dug up and restored.

Don't think either of these cars were red, though.

 

Before and after

 

that's unpossible

 

Looks like an Alfa Romeo 8C - possibly the one from the Ralph Lauren collection?

 

i see a new discovery channel show brewing...

"lets put this car through a crusher and see if anyone can restore it" we can call it....smash the car and rebuild it garage.

 

Yikes, someone pointed out on the Savoy thread though, at what point does it stop being an original and start being a replica?

If I find one fender from an original Altered does that make mine a restored orginal?

What percent of this car is original now? less than 10%? so is this a replica or original resto? I mean hell its amazing, but all of the body on this must be new handmade metal, from the before pic there is zero of the original left, not even floor pans. Then drivetrain, etc etc.. interior, guages....

You get my point ?

Scot

 

I just saved those pictures because it was the most amazing thing I ever seen. Memory and colours says Italian, possibly Alfa

 

Classic and Sports Car did an article detailing those cars. They were a V-12 and a V-16, i think a C and D model. There were remains of 2 chassis. They were found by a couple from Florida? The rebuild was done by Croswaithe and Gardner in England (incredible)!!

About a few months after that, another one (an early V-12) showed up in Ireland/ Scotland, but I think it turned out to be a fake...(anyone confirm)

Recently there have been a couple of 300SL Gullwings pop up in Cuba (sans engines though), and i think an early DB 2/4 Aston Martin. Cuba should have some great stuff from pre-castro, but it all will be very worn out now...(but who cares)

South America turns up alot of great stuff too, Argentina, Boliva, Urugauy have some great 20's - 40's americana show up all the time. The exchange rate is good too. I was following a late 20's dual cowl LeSalle touring for a while, but it disappeared on me (dammit). South america was a oil boom area in the 20's and 30's, and lots of great cars went down there at that time.

If you ever research Paul Moser (B. Paul Moser, or any combination there off, he was very hated by the time he died and kept changing his name accordingly) Had made a great career out of digging up very rare cars out of Argentina. He also found the "Jade" Silver Ghost Alpine Eagle.

 

that is an Alfa 8C 2900 B (refered to as a 2.9 B) it appears to be one of the Mille Miglia bodied cars. Very expensive and very rare. (1 of 8 or 10 surviving) where is Bluto...

 

like the ax my dad had for twenty years,
replaced the handle ten times and the head twice.

I think with original paperwork and at least some original parts it is a restoration.

 

Babs was buried in the Pendine sands, after her driver was killed and wasn't supposed to be dug up (but fuck peoples memories, who gives a shit about the dead anways )

Another cool one, was i think, at the Elgin race track, David Bruce-Brown was killed in 1913-14 driving a 110hp FIAT, (might have been bigger) supposedly after he was killed, his mom took the car back to Long Island and buried it at her house.

Now, the car that he was killed in, was repaired and raced that same series by Louis Chevrolet...so it was running after Bruce-Brown was killed. No one has ever found the car though.

if my dates are off, sorry.

 

Earlier this year some English rodders went over to South America and brought back several Model A's - mostly converted to pick ups. They paid buttons for them!!

 

Arnie Beswick's original Tameless Tiger A/FX factory lightweight Tempest was a crashed pile in a ditch on his farm. A guy bought it a few years ago and it's restored now.

Zora Duntov was quoted at a show as saying "There were 5 Gran Sport Corvettes built, and all 7 of them are here today!" (Don't know if I have the numbers right, but there were two more than originally built)

An "Original" '69 ZL1 Camaro in a local rich guy's collection is supposedly totally original, numbers matching, never wrecked, etc.
Except, I know the guy who tracked it down and pulled it out of a Georgia junk yard with no engine, trans or interior, rotted half way up the doors, and I know the guy who restored it for the rich guy. (And that rich fucker looked me in the eye and lied about the car, even giving me some very in-depth details for me to write a magazine article on it. That fuck--glad I found out and didn't look stupid in print.)

-Brad

 

The English have set up some Rules/Guidelines for that.

With out looking it up, I think for a vintage car to be a restoration it has to have the Chassis rails ( or I think the lower rails for a Space frame), the rear axle, and the Engine Block.

That means Babs qualifies.
But unless they found the original Engine, that Alfa doesn't.

And going by those rules, my Special wont either since I don't have the original Engine...

I don't know if those rules accepted everywhere or if they are just used in England...

 

So what happens to the guys racing cars like the DB 214 "project" i am kinda curious if anyone has any thoughts about the guys racing "re-pops", "re-builds" and "re-creations", that are little more than a few bits hung together with largely recreated parts. How are those cars differentiated between?

as an example (C and D jags being so cliche) the guys who fab-ed up the Lancia D-50's, should they be allowed to run against original cars?, albeight are there really any original vintage F-1 cars racing today? the worst offenders being guys who build blatant fakes, call them originals and then sell them as originals.

 

what did the owner say, when you printed the "truth" about his car? what was his response. I mentioned the DB 214 project, the guy who owned it, was trying to auction it as the original car, there was some research (very indepth, and i guess conclusive) done on the car, that turned up literally days before the car was to hit the auction block. that showed the car to be a complete fake, and was subsequently withdrawn from the auction. The widow of the builder of the car was quoted as a saying "the aston-martin emblems should be removed from the car."

 

The English Vintage Car Clubs had to do something...

In the 70s there were a lot of Frazer Nash Le Mans replicas built. ( a homely looking British Race Car )
And people were recreating Blower Bentley's by ripping the bodies off Sedans, and shortening the Frames.
I think there are about 1 1/2 as many M8b mcLaren race cars than originally built, and who knows how many Lotus 23B's...

I dont think there is anything wrong with building a clone, as long as its not passed off as a original.
Same goes for a restauration where a lot of the original parts were lost (like my car ).
The parts that did survive have their place in History.
It is what it is...

 

The HAMB's very own do the same shit on a rular basis!
Our own ~~~~ROOST~~~~ is a perfect example......He found and purchased this car-and I thought he was nuts- BUT........he has redone a lot of it already and has posted some pics here.
I hope he sees this and adds some more pics-cause it was a marginal car -till he got it!
He definitely- has the "stuff" to make it right!!

 

"An ENGLISH land speed record car from the '20s called "Babs", powered by a 27-liter aircraft engine, was buried in the sand at a beach where it had crashed and killed its driver. It was dug up and restored, I think within the last 10 years."


Oh oh...better watch your back...the Welsh Liberation Army is after you! Better learn to tell different sorts of Honkies apart!

Car and driver were WELSH, as were the sands involved--the whole point was to bring the LSR to Wales, taking it away from the godless imperialist English!

I read an article about this thing in a British (reasonably inclusive term, I hope??) Olde Car mag that noted the driver was beheaded by a broken drive chain, and the car was summarily buried by angry locals who were VERY displeased with its behavior. Nothing like a monument was intended!

 

John Godfrey Parry-Thomas was partly decapitaded by one of the drivechains.

But I've read that the people who examined the wrecked car did not know if the broken chain caused the wreck, or if the chain broke during the wreck.
A colapsed Wheel and a broken radius rod may have caused it too, and Parry Thomas was ill when he did that record run too. ( flu )
Some people thought could have been a factor as well...
It really was a horrible crash.

The car was dug up in '69.

 

I'm pretty sure I saw the Babs car in a museum, might have been Old Warden?

 

"restaur-(ant)-ation" to cook up a car, that made me chuckle, cause it is so true.

back in the 90's a guy in soCal (name with-held) cooked up a never built/ non existent 1903 Packard touring car, straight from the original drawings, and called it an original.

If you saw any of the pics from Ormond beach, there was a replica of the Packard "Grey Wolf" race car there. That touring car had the exact same engine in it, supposedly, when the touring was built they also built enough parts to create the racer. The workmanship and execution is perfect.

I was wondering if any one here would do/ has done a tech in aging paint. When i say that, i mean actually aging the paint, getting good texture in the paint, fading, cracking, rusting, wearing... (not just painting on rust streaks)

 

Typo...Sorry.

My point was, really, that a car person that is in it truely for the cars will probably not lie about the History of his car.

I think that is more likely to happen when money, ego, and Race eligibillity gets more important.

 

Wether its considered a restoration or a replica, to look at that "thing" and say, "wow, that's a great start for a project" is freakin nuts. Cool, but nuts.

Mootz

 

I didn't run the story. He knows why I didn't, and we left it at that. In a passing conversation, I simply mentioned that I'd "talked to XX about that car." and that was as far as it went. I know, he knows I know, and there it is.
-Brad

 

For someone with the right skills and money, all it takes is salvageing the numbers off the car. Everything can be fabricated.

Seen a 6 banger Camaro or Mustang lately?
I'd venture to say that probably 2/3 of the surviving origional 68/69 six-banger econo Camaros are now "Numbers Matching" Z-28s and big block SS cars. See them all the time at car shows and runs with the wrong marker and backup lights, door trim or 70's 350 smogger heads and brackets. They tend to forget to get the shocks and springs right too. Or the rear end ratio. Takes more than a mail order 160 MPH speedometer to make a fake. It can be done tho. The guys who are good at it can fool the experts. Same goes for everything from muscle cars to 57 fuelie Bel-Aires and early 60's 409 cars. I saw a "Numbers Matching" origional 68 SS-396 (According to the sign in front of it) last summer for sale. It had wing windows. "Special ordered" The guy says. Only missing the origional engine and transmission. The guy had to replace them with a 327 when the 396 went out. Uh, OK. Guess that must have been when the 10 bolt rear got put in it too. Oh, and the guy had lost the title but with a bill of sale it's easy to get a new one he says...

I have known a couple guys over the years that were really crushed to learn the 69 Z-28 302 they bought was actually a normal 350 car dolled up.
There are several race cars that have had one guy restore the body and someone else restore the chassis. Racers will often sell the body to someone then sell the chassis to someone else later. And Zora was right. I think one of those extras came from 1 car being split up and a couple more were built from parts.