Wow...that conversion car on eBay is pretty convincing for the novice like
me....somebody went through some real effort to replicate the car. I'm
amazed. I have learned through Norm and some others how to spot the correct
rivets on the Tag, and those aren't it...so thankfully I would have caught
that if I was an interested buyer....and hopefully I would have caught some
other things...but I can tell it would have been difficult to spot...and I
feel like I know them pretty well these days, having been down to the raw
metal on my car...
Did you guys notice the alternator bracket? Isn't that the same Mk!! Bracket
discussed earlier?
Now I know that I said " as long as its represented as a replica ( or
conversion) I have no problem with it...." or something like that...which is
still true....this one is so convincing....its making the claim that it's a
Tiger if nothing is said to dispute....i mean...if you have an alpine, with
the shifter in the center of the tunnel, square inner fender
braces...etc...obvious stuff...but it has a sbf in it...to me, its not
trying to be a Tiger, since alpine bodies and Tiger bodies are so different
in other ways....now this car is taking it to the next level.... its
actually impersonating the real car in careful detail....all of the sudden I
find myself on the fence...because this car might actually hurt somebody who
thinks he's buying a Tiger. Thankfully the current seller is honest about
it...and at this point I'm sure Norm is aware...so hopefully this PARTICULAR
car wont contribute to the problem...but its not usually such a concern to
me because most that I have seen don't execute the effort so well.
Seems clear to me that a real Tiger was sacrificed to make this car happen.
I know that I have asked this before, but I still have an unanswered
question, and I don't think there is a right answer, but that question is,
how much is "too much" to desclassify the original car? (any car for that
matter) I mean, in this case, if we assume an Alpine V was stripped, and the
critical and visually obvious pieces of a Tiger were cut out of an old Tiger
body and welded into this one, then its clearly a fake. On the other side of
the issue, I don't know anyone who would say that a Tiger is not a Tiger
because it had a qtr panel replaced due to an accident ( and the qtr came
off an Alpine)...lets say it had new floor boards installed, and you buy
reproductions that fit either car.... catch my drift? There have been
Severely rusty tigers on eBay before, where the rockers were
non-existent...floor pans nonexistent, let's say you fixed all of that, new
front sheet metal, new qtrs, new pans....i have seen Tigers on Dale's
website where the sheet metal was taken down to that level....i mean it
looked like a pan with a firewall and that's it....and I haven't heard
anyone say that his Tiger restorations produce fake Tigers...then again, I
don't know if he is putting real "donor" Tiger exterior sheet metal back on
his projects..
How much metal has to be replaced on a Tiger body to take away its
legitimacy? It may not matter, but I don't think the issue will ever be
black and white. And you cant answer with..." well we define it as whether
or not the original body rolled off the Tiger Jensen assembly line..." that
doesn't answer my question....but in all honesty, I doubt anyone can. The
only true answer I can think of, would be 51% of its sheet metal mass....if
you replace or change 51% you have made it less Tiger than whatever you
replaced it with....but I'll say this, 51% of a raw body tub of a Tiger
would fit easily in the back of my pickup...lol
Cullen
1452 LROFE
"one of 53 known to exist" ( Thanks Steve)
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