Posted by Peter Skudder
Tom,
First of all I would like to thank you for making my working day a little more interesting by the message board and your excellent site.
The other thing that I was thinking about is the replica issue. A restoration/engineering company in England called Hall and Fowler actually make engines and other components for historic racing cars. They make complete Coventry Climax, BRM engines and have made Auto Union engines too.
The 250 GTO and TR replicas must use very little of the donar car, i.e. engine, gearbox and rear axle ... and maybe some gauges, etc. and it seems such a waste.
Wouldn't it almost be cost effective for these companies to pull together (and maybe the Ferrari clubs) and get Hall and Fowler to tool up for making the Columbo 250 series V12 and gearbox, etc. This would provide a very useful source of spares for those cars that are currently considered beyond restoration because their motors/gearboxes/diffs have destroyed themselves.
I imagine there would be alot of people upset at this idea, but lets face it a new motor, or parts of a motor, is part of a cars continous history and as long as it is documented it is better that the car can still be driven than been scrapped or resigned to a static display in a Museum. After all most rebuilds replace nearly all the moving parts, i.e. pistons, rods and valves, etc.
This would save the current old Ferrari's from being picked on. I imagine the Ferrari company would have something to say about this (?) but I would prefer that replicas were made completely new and we all know the numbers and where-abouts of the real cars knowadays.
Just a thought. It would be very expensive, but we would be talking of more than 1 engine. Based on the current replica market plus spare requirements, the number would be something like 20 a year.
Pete