Cheap or What or What What?

[DSCBoy]

Errr.... guilty as charged... it was a kettle... but decided it might be fun to take it to Le Mans on the morning of the 24hours and try and break the sound barrier down the Mulsanne...

Tell you it's a truly bizarre marketplace, as Paul says.... you don't want to buy anything that hasn't been doing over 150mph (in someone elses hands) in the last 20 mins... there are at least 3 manufacturers of whole cars using at least 3 different tub manufacturers and there are loads for sale at widely varying prices, at least 5 in the UK for a start from £200k to £5mm!

One week you see a ex-Le Mans, Kremer car, famous sponsor/livery offered at £250k (and hits any bid vaguely in the vicinity) then the following week someone tries to sell you a pile of bits that used to be a interseries car and isn't necessarily complete, built by some German in his shed, all the bits are VERY secondhand nor does the car have any sort of useful history (you can't run Le Mans unless the car did in period) for basically the same money????

So I bought something that is Le Mans Classic, Historic Monte (try doing that in a 962...), Goodwood Revival, Mille Miglia AND Tour Auto eligible... but since it didn't come from Stuttgart I'm ashamed to admit what it is!

 

[h_____]

Please do tell us what you bought, it does sound interesting?

Another very interesting thread!

 

[Hacki]

ORIGINAL: DSCBoy

So I bought something that is Le Mans Classic, Historic Monte (try doing that in a 962...), Goodwood Revival, Mille Miglia AND Tour Auto eligible... but since it didn't come from Stuttgart I'm ashamed to admit what it is!

Come on, Rick, it can´t be worth than the Nissan....

 

[DSCBoy]

Can't be worse than the Nissan true...

Totally original 1952 Aston DB2... never restored... hopefully Mille Miglia 2011 but depending on my racing commitments for this year maybe a few other events as well like the Goodwood Revival.

Primarily I want to do this at the end of the year and then if she runs ok try the Historic Monte Carlo in Jan 2011...

http://www.fransurf.com/sableschauds/indexclassic-2.html

Sorry... not widebodied, not aircooled... off to stand in the corner...

 

[jason]

Very nice bud...enjoy!

 

[Melv]

Verra verra nice Rick -enjoy!!

 

[Hacki]

What a beautiful car!

 

[h_____]

Oooooo yes nice choice. [8D]

[8|] Is that the actual car? Reason I ask is that it doesnt look Prep'd yet? Is that right? What are you planning on doing to get it prepped. And in keeping with this thread, do you have FIA papers with it? In which case I guessing it has HC papers? Or are you going through all of that exercise? Keep us posted!!

 

[RSGulp]

Ooh Sir! A wonderful car Rick, which would be great to see at LM Classic.

 

[paul howells]

nothing wrong with a early aston,competed against many in the aston owners club organised events.
May even have some news myself very soon,hopefully back to CLM again.
Enjoy the aston,especially in the mille.

 

[Damen]

You will struggle to get a Goodwood entry with a standard DB2, save for one of the VMFs i.e. the factory race cars and they are all north of £500K. To get a standard DB2 to track spec, let alone Le Mans Classic eligible will cost considerably more than the value of a very good 964 RS!!!! But I'm sure you already know that?

Damen

 

[DSCBoy]

This car is totally original, so we'll aim for the Mille with this and then look further at the other things afterwards as Mille loves originality and you need deviate from that to track prepare obviously for the Tour Auto/CLM/Goodwood. There is some debate we might be better off using this one for Mille and then finding a tattier one to race prepare.

Goodwood entry I hope won't be too much of a problem as we have a very good relationship with them and this car has period Goodwood race history (1957 AMOC races). Ditto Tour Auto/CLM and MM all from our racing exploits. But remains to be seen obviously! Hate to be over-confident and then proved wrong!!

Hence there is some debate over what is "track-spec" as clearly it was "track-spec" circa 1957 and I'd be interested where you think the costs lie Damen... we'll have done a full mechanical overhaul before she hits the road again so engine will be "reasonably strong", a lot of the historic guys don't replace the original fuel tanks, we'll have sneaked in a cheeky roll protection of some form etc, we are debating about what to do on the seat front, fuel filler etc... but am told we won't have too many issues getting FIA papers, so I'll keep you posted on the process...

 

[Damen]

Rick

The DB2 is a great car, definitely the best of the Felthams. However, a standard car will last about two corners on track and a standard engine will struggle to pull the skin off a rice pudding. There are only a few true Feltham experts and they charge accordingly.

Front ends need plenty doing to them to enable a DB2 to handle properly, I'd suggest circa £5K needing to be spent.

There's not much you can do the the rear end other than replace the lever arms and springs, but you can still reckon on north of £1K.

Engines??? Well, let's hope you car has the original 2.6 litre and not a later 3 litre, otherwise you won't be able to run eligibly anywhere (short of being an expert or taking the head off there are not too many visual clues to capacity). If you car is original and hasn't had recent engine work, then it'll need some. You can buy new blocks (let me know should you need names and numbers) which are the best part of £10,000. I'd suggest that you wouldn't get a proper rebuild done for south of £25K and you'd need to spend closer to £50K to get something with decent performance i.e. 200 bhp (which is what DB2s which run at the Le Mans Classic etc have).

As long as the car doesn't need chassis or body work, then wheels (you should move from 60 to 72 spokes), tyres and brakes will costs another £5K minimum and should you go down the Borrani route a lot more.

The above is just for starters.

Also, the AMOC has never, as far as I am aware, raced at Goodwood. Instead, I believe, Goodwood has only been used by the AMOC for sprints. However, DB2s ran at Goodwood in period in the TT and BARC meetings.

Let me know should you want/need to know more.

I guess we should revert to talking about 964 RSs ............

Damen

 

[DSCBoy]

You are right, BARC at Goodwood and AMOC at Silverstone in '57. Car has original 2.6 litre so will need some serious fettling.

Thanks for the info above, certainly lots of things there we are working on already and it's good to hear informed opinion on what we need to be targeting on the engine, and one in particular I'd not got a handle on yet (the wheels!).

I'm fortunate to have an expert shop where I don't pay retail so hoping to trim the costs a bit!

As u say, where were we before some Johnny-come-lately started talking about Astons and lowering the tone of the place?

 

[h_____]

keep us posted on this, sounds a really interesting project. Esp. keen to hear if you make it CLM and into the MM! Top items on my life tick list, not yet sure how to get there.

 

[Richard Dawson]

I don't know the car and I have not read the long threads on it but originality is interesting.

Continuous history say in a single seater may mean that what you are sat in has few if any bits on from the car that left say Lotus. Replica may mean something with more "original bits" on from a car but no continuous history or made from spares.

Again if you had a barn find single seat racing car that you wanted to race today you'd end up binning most of it and having it remade. Tragic if you ask me! Save the original and just race a rep!!

How many 2. 7rs are original? Plenty I am sure but also plenty like any other 70s 911 will have had major work before values rose.

To me I can see the value in an unmolested 2.7 rs but one it has refurb work done, with heavy panels and filler and lead then what is "rs" about it?

Notwithstanding that can't help thinking the car being the subject of this thread will be a good investment!!

 

[RSR]

Some really good debate on here. The car that started the thread would make a good buy for someone as the price doesn't seem far off if it's correct spec, regardless of provenance.

I'd like to add to the general debate around the re-shelling thing with race cars and provenance, etc. I'm really in to the GT2 race cars and have looked into all sorts of other cars to buy another one. I found all sorts going on and wondered what general views were. I won't mention specific cars on here as in some cases I found duplicate cars that other people owned and thought were the only one. Anyway this is one scenario that I still can't decide on whether to buy the car, but it echo's what Paul Howells has said about proving it's a real car and proof of history and ignore the number.

I found a GT2 race car for sale with good history, apparently Le Mans 24 hours etc, etc. I flew off to inspect the car knowing that the chassis number of the car was exactly the same as another car belonging to someone I know. I was intrigued nontheless, as this other car could be the real one. I met the owner, current FIA GT racing driver who raced it in period, and inspected the car. For sure it was a real factory GT2. The shell number was correct for a GT2, all the right parts, seam welding, etc. Spares package included body panels for it's in period livery. Cage included FIA inspection tags. Owner had sales invoice from original owning period race team and loads of photo's and stuff you'd expect for a real car. Trouble was the owner of the same chassis numbered car I knew had similar supporting material too. I checked both cars shell numbers as a match for the chassis number with Porsche and the one I was looking at was not correct for the chassis number. However they confirmed it's shell number was a GT2 shell they supplied. I got the phone number for the original team owner to ask him how there were 2 cars with the same chassis number sold by him. Luckily he spoke perfect english and after skirting around the issue he was polite enough to offer an answer after I half expected him to just hang up. Basically he bought another body shell from the factory, and parts, and built another car. Used one of them to do a lot of the races in the US and the other one stayed in europe. This information is supported by the fact that only one of the cars has the extra IMSA bars welded in on the roll cage expectd for US. In theory the car I looked at is no different in concept to the Roock cars which Roock built to their own spec on bare factory shells and achieved great success with. Also it became clear that the car I looked at, although not the original car supplied with that chassis number, is a real GT2 with real race history. Not Le Mans, but Daytona 24hrs and Sebring 12hrs, etc.

I still can't decide whether to buy it? Would anyone else?

 

[jason]

ORIGINAL: Richard Dawson

Notwithstanding that can't help thinking the car being the subject of this thread will be a good investment!!

There is so much about this car that is not in this thread though that you really need to read all about it on likes of DDK to be enlightened tbh.

I've serious doubts any of this car is actually from the RS vin number its claiming to be. Its been different colours had different interiors, different engine mods (3.0 pistons etc etc), wrong shell, wrong stamps, god only knows what else.

For all we know the actual car could still be out there []

Paul if its cheap enough then its worth it....everything has a price[]

Have you told your friend about it and how happy will they be if you bring it over here too?!!

 

[RSR]

Jason it's still a 6 figure sum so not especially cheap. The owners of both cars now know the situation and both believed they had the only one. In this scenario the matching production number and chassis number pair help identify the original car that left the factory. However it's worth noting that where duplicate cars like this exist it doesn't neccessarily mean the original car has the best race provenance.

I unearthed a different scenario where there were 2 cars with the same chassis number, and the original production number / chassis number paired car had an accident at the start of season testing. The team got a new shell and rebuilt the car. The re-shelled car did all the prestigious stuff and got the best results. The team built the damaged shell back into another car at the end of the season and sold both cars. So in this scenario you could argue that the car with the non-matching numbers should be more valuable and the orginal matching number paired car didn't really do anything much except get damaged and repaired. In this scenario which of the 2 cars would you rather have?

As Paul Howells said earlier the factory now help avoid this situation as you get a new shell on an exchange basis, they stamp the shell and the old one is crushed.

 

[clubsport]

Paul, although you are buying a car with race history, you are obviously paying up for some implied goodwill from the sister car,,,if at the price you pay, you enjoy it and add to the history then it's all good..if you ever sell it though, you have to either keep the myth going if the buyer doesn't do their own research, or mention the cloning up front..obviously cloning will not halve the value, but I cannot see it being worth what it should be a a single entity...as a real outsider, what if a 3rd car turns up??
Personally, I would wait for something to come along that ticked all the right boxes, certainly doesn't mean I am right, but myself and perhaps others might walk from any car if there was something slightly fishy, especially at this price point.