Hi folks. Here is a post from a Porsche 356 owners list. But, I thought
the Tiger folks concerned about Algers might find this interesting. The
guy who wrote it is Jeffrey Vogel (parzival@pipeline.com):
This "Conversion" and reconstruction of vintage cars started in the 1960's
and 1970's with a
gentleman (used very loosely) whom repaired and serviced Bugatti
automobiles. Whenever a client
sent him a vehicle for work, this mechanic would disassemble the vehicle
and
reassemble it with
some of it's original parts and some home made reproductions. Then he
would
build a new car using
the scavenged parts. In those days serial numbers where not widely
collected
and as a result all
the Bugatti's that he came into contact with are now suspect and it's
guesstiamted that more than
30% of Bugatti cars that have been in the USA in this period are mixtures
of
real (Molsheim)parts and Florida made reproductions.
In the ensuing years, most rebuilt Bugatti cars are mixture of
orginal,repro and wrong parts
that baffle all but the most ardent automotive archeologists.
In the Ferrari milieu, when values soared in the 1980's and 1990's,
several
enterprising
Ferrari sub contractors in and around Modena started to manufacture brand
new motors, frames
bodies and even whole cars around destroyed VIN numbers. I recall buying a
NEW 250 V-12 engine
made in the original foundry in Modena. They also offered me a brand new
250
LM sans vin number
but created by the same workers who had made the original !
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