In a message dated 5/31/2003 3:45:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
larry.p@erols.com writes:
> Tom Patton, and others have show,
> is very fast on the track.
>
> How does a 37 year old car beat a new factory team, and yes Tom's car is
> a race car, but so are those factory team cars. Embarrassing to the
> factory teams, so they change the rules, but what would the interest be
> in the Tiger if all the restrictors were removed?
>
Yes, Tom's car is a race car. Literally, the only truly Tiger-specific items
on the car are the tail lights and the gas pedal (if anyone's interested, an
article I wrote for Tiger Tracks regarding Tom's car is, I think, somewhere on
TU website). I'm still extremely happy to see him succeed and have nothing but
respect for the amount of development an effort involved! I also agree that
there is no doubt the SCCA listens to the "lobbying" of the manufacturers for
more restrictions on Tom's car...
(The following is just my own, incredibly biased (and insightful!) opinion)
The main item holding Tiger prices back (heck, a good Alfa Giulia is worth
more and don't even get me started on Healeys) is that the car never developed
much of a true following when new. It was poorly positioned by Rootes, perhaps
due to financial difficulties, and then was fairly well ignored after the
ChryCo acquisition. Compounding matters (or perhaps the "roote" of the matter)
is
a less than stellar competition record, outside of Doane's B production car
and the rally cars. Tigers became kind of an oddity in the late '60s: not quite
sports cars (in the eyes of the string back glove guys and road racers) and
not quite muscle cars, they were appreciated by only those who "knew".
There are many examples of "following", "pedigree" and competition record
influencing pricing that I can think of, e.g. is a Lotus Elan really "worth"
20-25k more than an Elva Courier? Is a TVR Vixen worth half of what you can get
for a 356 Porsche, even though there were far less TVR's made? Is a 1965 Shelby
GT350 worth at least twice as much as a K-code Mustang Fastback, just because
there were a fraction as many Shelby's produced?
The Tiger never caught on when new, in a truly meaningful way, which is why
we are so lucky to be able to play with them on the relative cheap. It is too
late to create a legend. We will, however, continue to see relatively small
numbers of truly enlightened, pragmatic and intelligent enthusiasts gravitate
towards the Tiger :-)
My two cents...
Mike
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