Spot the fake

Fake or replica?

This sort of point was raised in a TV programme about Jaguar making a small number of lightweight E types and giving them genuine unused serial numbers from the original production run. Apparently, these £1.2M new machines are regarded as replicas and will not be accepted for events in which the original cars now compete.

That's right. They were replicas. Neither the numbers they were given or the cars themselves had any racing heritage.

That is not correct. The six lightweight E types are known as 'continuations', and are not replicas.

They are built from chassis numbers originally allocated back in 1963/4, but never built. In effect they are delayed production.

These six E types are FIA approved to race in historic championships.

The racing heritage applies more to the model, not to the individual cars.

The chassis numbers were allocated in 1963/4 but the cars were never built, so the six cars in question cannot have any individual racing heritage.

The owners of the twelve cars built in 1963/4 will be surprised to hear that they have no racing heritage, given that some of them have raced for 55 years.

Here y'go. This lightweight E Type for example first raced on Whit Monday 1963

**LINK**

As some one said previously if its a slightly cheap price expect fake.

Too many knock offs sold as Mitutoyo and these fraudsters are getting away with it.
£40 for what would be a good earner for them at £7 thats the difference.

By buying the fakes you are fuelling the fire.

Genuine below and current issue.
Item number: 500-180-30

Must replace mine been playing up for years.

Item number: 500-706-20

The fakers are parasites by definition. It's why protection is offered under copyright law. Unfortunately, Chine doesn't recognise copyright law except where it suits it to recognise it. Most of China's luxury cars are knock offs of European models.

Re: The E Types. I think most people will consider these cars as pretenders even with a number (and nothing else) that was written on a piece of paper fifty years ago unless you want to argue the vehicles existed the moment the number was written down (which they patently didn't). It's an interesting technical exercise and Jaguar would find a market for them in their own right but I agree about them not qualifying for classic/vintage/veteran status. They are brand new cars given old chassis numbers.

Is HMS Victory in Portsmouth Dockyard an original, a replica or a fake?

The Ship of Theseus paradox is an old one. It applies to you and me - apparently cells are replaced so quickly in the human body that in 6 months 98% of the atoms will be new . Scary!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 16/01/2018 20:26:07

The Cannon are fibre glass so some of it is fake.

And all the wood has been replaced at least once.

The Rocket displayed in the Science Museum is not as it ran at Rainhill. Note the angle of the cylinders in the Wikipedia photo of the original:

Compared with the replica which has them in the original configuration:

The original is less realistic than the replica. Truth is they're both wrong and they're both right. Confusing or what?

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 16/01/2018 20:58:46

it makes me wonder how many of the believed/alleged 'genuine' cars have their original cranks, pistons, wheels, bodywork, etc. Just watch when one gets stuffed into the bank at Goodwood and see how much is left in a straight untouched condition.

My point was that the line is not a clear one, there are a lot of blurred distinctions and not a few outright frauds out there, not all of them sold cheap on x-bay.

Cheers, Tim

Sorry Chris, but the facts do not support this.

Jaguar still have 86 original build ledgers in their archives from the period covering 1931 to 1983, and the chassis numbers for the unbuilt cars from 1963 are in there. They didn't just scribble them on a piece of paper.

You may not think they qualify for classic/vintage/veteran status, but the FIA do.

Wind forward to 2016. I ordered a brand new Ford Focus. It was given a VIN and build numbers before any work was done to build the car. Exactly the same procedure as the lightweight E Types.

Did my car exist when the VIN/build numbers were given to that? No.

Was there anything the matter with that? No.

What is an acceptable time limit between giving a vehicle a build/chassis number and physically building it? Who can say.

The lightweight E Types were subjected to an interrupted build process. Extreme, I grant you, but as simple as that.

Edited By David Standing 1 on 16/01/2018 21:22:21

Dave

This analogy does not fit Jaguar's view of the continuation E Types.

Their view is that a replica is a copy of something belonging to someone else. Since they have copied nothing, the continuation cars are not replicas.

Trigger's broom.

I forget what the oldest running car is still in existence, probably around 1898. The vast majority of older cars built since then will naturally have replacement parts in them.

Replacing parts of an original car, however, is not the same issue as faking or building 'replicas', if it is essentially the same car as originally built.

Tying this into the aircraft thread, there are many Spitfires flying today that are rebuilt from what remained of crashed planes in period, of which nothing much was salvaged apart from serial numbers. What are they? Fakes? Replicas?

The truth is there are no right answers.

The preservation vs. restoration debate is a good example of this.

On cars

Personally, I don't think a mid-sized car made by BMW is a 'Mini' even if it says 'Cooper' on it, has white stripes on the bonnet and is actually a very good car. If it followed the original design philosophy with modern enhancements I might think differently.

I am happy to accept one of the Brazilian-built Beetles as the 'real thing', certainly more genuine than a modern Volkswagen 'version'.

As for the E-Types. Not only are Jaguar the original manufacturer, the cars are essentially built to the original design. The chassis numbers are a distraction, but no-one is being fooled that these are fifty year old classics, they are new production of an old design and no doubt roundly superior to the originals. But I feel they are E-type jags, just as Tornado is a 'real' A1 loco.

The Rocket is a good example. That in the Science Museum is the 'real' Rocket, albeit much modified from its original condition. The replica is, to my mind, a modern continuation of the original production - a 'Rocket-class' loco, if you will.

Another example is the F1A engine used on the Saturn V rocket. A hugely effective design, it has been resurrected as the F1B using modern manufacturing techniques.

Neil

In essence they're what the motor trade would call a 'cut & shut'.

Well yes, one of the original 12 lightweights sold in the USA via Bonhams in Jan 2017 for £6 million, the six continuation lightweights only cost around £1.2 million new. So I guess you are right, but it is pretty academic really at those values!

But, all of the six continuation cars are going to be used in competition, so in time they will gain their own competition histories, and the gap will probably narrow.

Only 18 made in total, supply and demand, prices of both will probably always remain strong.

Would a Myford 7 lathe manufactured as of today, be classed as a fake, considering that it would be produced in a different location and by a different workforce using different machinery?

Martin.

Well the Countryman is now larger iirc than an Austin Maxi, but a Countryman is also way bigger than a 2 door modern Mini. An original just looks ridiculously small but then so do most 'old' cars.

Issigonis held the same view on the bulk of the modern reincarnation, what he forgot is people are larger than they were in 1959, they now demand safety systems, they demand crumple zones and designing something that in a minor crash will rearrange your customers face on the steering wheel and legs with the gearbox and engine coming through the bulkhead is deemed really bad practice. Any high speed off-road excursion would nearly always require a body bag. In competition on circuits even with the benefit of full FIA approved rollcages, 6 point harnesses and high back seats there have sadly been fatalities.

You can now use a full tank of fuel, 400 miles or so at near 50mpg at 70mph on petrol with nothing more than a toilet break in the modern version, the original was never anything but a city car, 50 miles on a dual carriageway at 70mph in an 850 flat out even with a load of soundproofing in midsummer would leave you deaf, sweaty and exhausted, 10 miles on a twisty road would put a smile on your face, 300 miles in a day would often require back surgery, been there done that got the t-shirt.

The door pockets on the original with sliding windows and the rope door catch release could accommodate iirc four bottles of gin each side, the modern one really struggles with a bag of loose change and a few throat lozenges, but then again it's now significantly more than a sheet of cardboard covered in vinyl, and a door skin 60 thou thick between you and the outside world.