I had a Tiger that was totaled. I kept the wreck and then bought an Alpine.
I transferred the parts needed to make the Alpine into a Tiger or I could
take the position that I repaired the wreck by replacing the broken body
which produces a better job that trying to duplicate the original building
process on a frameless car or straightening a frameless automobile.
The intent was never to defraud anyone. In fact, repairing a frameless car
and passing it off as unwrecked, which is more common than not, is a more
common fraud. As another matter of fact, when I put so much time into a car,
I generally don't want to get rid of it. I have a half dozen cars that I
rebuilt that I have had for more than twenty years.
I don't mind that collectors demand originality, but I can't always get so
excited over extreme total originality. but it is good that others do if for
no other reason than to promote classic car interest.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Theo Smit" <tsmit@shaw.ca>
To: "Tom Witt" <wittsend@jps.net>
Cc: <tigers@autox.team.net>; "Bob Palmer" <rpalmer@ucsd.edu>; "Dieter
Schmied" <dieter@one.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: Fake tiger on Hemmings
> There are two categories of Algers. The first one is the problematic type
where
> the car receives a Tiger VIN plate, as well as a number of other Tiger
parts, as
> part of it's creation. It's hard to argue the point that this gets done
for any
> reason other than to pass the car off as a genuine Tiger, which is fraud.
The
> other type of Alger is where someone does an engine swap on an Alpine, and
the
> donor engine is a Ford smallblock. There is little or no intent to
convince
> anyone about the car's origins, the result a 'hot rod' in every sense, and
if
> anything serves to enhance the value of genuine Tigers by bringing these
cars to
> the attention of more people. The second type is more equivalent to the
Cobra
> clone situation. The Cobra doesn't have a nearly identical production
chassis to
> a much less valuable car, and any of the kit cars can usually be readily
> identified as such.
> The Tiger-Alger frauds are more like the Mustang - Shelby GT350 situation,
where
> a few transferred pieces of identification, sheetmetal, and mechanical
bits can
> fool the unwary.
>
> Theo
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