NXI20
Estoril
- Joined
- 2 Feb 2008
- Messages
- 3,572
johntyboy said:Obviously when you are buying a car it would be nice to know the entire history of a car.
But with some of these cars getting on for 20 years old, most will have had some paint, maybe some metal work, some maybe a little bump that's been sorted. It seems that folk can be really picky about this sort of stuff. For me it's more about ensuring the car is correct and if it has had some work then the work has been carried out to a high standard.
I have an early car that has been restored. During the restoration we found that the near side front wing had been replaced at some point in its 47 years, and it doesn't keep me awake at night.
The work that was carried out on my 1970 911 shell during the restoration was far more serious and intrusive than the car above. It seems that it's perfectly okay rip apart a shell and repair it as long as it's done correctly, in fact I think it actually adds value to my early car. Now I realise that the restoration on my shell was carried out due to corrosion not accident damage but it's all just metal.
It makes me wonder how old the 996 will need to be before we except that most will have had some metal work......
You are completely missing the point: it's not that it's been crashed & repaired, it's that it's being misrepresented as an undamaged original paint & panel car. If the seller had been honest about its history, nobody would have a problem with it. As you say, if the repairs have been well done, there won't be much to worry about although the disclosure will taint the car & it will always command a lower price & be less desirable than if it had been undamaged. The GT3 world is very small & also very well informed about the history of the UK cars. Trying to hide the history of one is foolish in the extreme; sooner or later the truth emerges... By illustration, Disco's old car was written off at the 'ring in 2011 and has now re-emerged from a long hibernation back on the road. We know that car had a twisted chassis which normally means a new shell. You haven't been able to get new shells for about 10 years. Draw your own conclusions about how that one was repaired...
As it stands, we have no idea how it was repaired or who by, although the fact that it is missing the wing endplates points to it being done either on the cheap or by people who don't know what an RS wing looks like; it may be fine, but that's obviously a concern. Who knows what other shortcuts have been taken? Without pictorial / invoice evidence of what the damage was when it went for repair & how it was addressed, it will be up to each potential buyer to get the car inspected & hopefully the inspection will be thorough enough to shed light on the repairs. Even if this is the case, we still have the problem of not knowing how & who carried out said repairs. For instance, was a bent chassis leg jigged straight properly or was it attached to a forklift by a chain & simply pulled straight while the other side was chained to a post? I'm not saying this is what has happened to this car but it is the kind of bodging that can go on; when you are sinking £70K into a car, you'd want to know wouldn't you?
Eventually, someone will come along & buy it at full retail with their heart not their head. They will then be in a world of pain when it's their turn to move it on.
That's the nub of the issue.