At 10:03 AM 3/18/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Tom,
>I guess that the REAL problem is the fear that a car that left the factory as
>a Tiger, was raced, wrecked, and rebuilt a few times would be declared a
>'conversion' by a self appointed committee that never tells what the problem
>might be.
>In a nutshell, an opinion might affect the enjoyment of the car ("oh, this
>piece of sh*t?...I thought it was a Tiger but now I just run the cr*p out of
>it, since it will never be worth much.....) as well cause legal problems down
>the road. Witness what has happened to some of the Corvette Indy Pace Cars.
>I appreciate what you are doing, but I also suspect that most of the people
>doing the TAC do so out of a regard for using a free advisory service as a
>basis to jack up the price of their investment.
>I recall a magazine interview with Norm a few years ago, in which he stated
>that the Tiger was never meant to be a hotrod, and that modified cars would
>never be worth much.
>Like some others, I suspect the TAC to be a backdoor way to make this a self
>fulfilling prophecy.
>Regards, Ray
Ray,
This is response is not directed at you personally, but an accumulation of
several days of Anti -TAC comments.
If your simply looking for differences between my Tiger philosophy and
Norman's, you just struck a homer, for what that's worth. Norm is not
alone in his feelings on the value of "stock" Tigers, and that's just fine
with me. I, on the other hand, don't own a Tiger, or Alpine for that
matter, that is not Modified to the Max. The Tiger I bought new in 1966
has been a rolling laboratory for every possible modification that does not
distroy its basic visual identity. It has fender flairs, functional side
air vents, 4 wheel disc brakes, Dual master cylinders, Hi-po 289, Pearl
White Paint, etc. My Blue Tiger has a late 302, T-5 trans, dual ignitions,
dual fuel systems, full black leather interior, Vented front disc brakes,
etc. My daughters Alpine runs on a 13B Mazda rotary with a Tiger rear end
and 5 speed.
My Third Tiger was recently sold to Rob Guerra, my son-in-law, and I am now
re-engineering the front structure of the Unibody to include new
triangulated structural members connecting the firewall to the frame, a
Monte Carlo bar and related structural connections to the shock tower and
crossmember. We will be using a Power Steering Rack, with the location yet
to be determined, to improve the awful factory compromize on Ackerman
geometry. I am an Engineer by both education and work experience. I
really don't know where we'll stop, and put Rob's Tiger on the road. Next
time around, I will push the envelope even farther. In short, I live to
improve my interests, and I build Tigers.
Every one of our family Tigers came down the Jensen Assembly Line. I just
like to make my own personal "adjustments". I frankly don't care a whit
about the "investment" value of my Tigers, or yours either. I do
appreciate basic human honesty and integrity. It really PMO to see some
inexperienced potential Tiger owner taken advantage of by an experienced
member of "Our Fraternity". If keeping secrets is helpful in protecting
the integrity of this Marque, that's exactly what I'm going to do, and if
we are the only Marque to take that step, I can sleep well at night.
However, if some of you some how feel that you have some God given right to
corrupt the wisdom, foresight, inventiveness and personal risks taken by my
friend Ian Garrad, I am going to be in your face to the maximum extent
possible, till the day I leave to join him. And if you think that
"everybody does it" is an excuse, your going to face the same consequences
as the guy with the bad knee in DC. (my apologies to the PC police)
For the last time, If the physical evidence of "factory production" is not
observable to STOA Inspectors, (by our interpretation) we do not
authenticate. If I know what to look for, and you don't, that's just the
way it is. Nobody whispered in my ear. I learned by making the effort,
and I don't give that away.
Tom Hall
|