07-11-2019, 10:17 AM
In answer to your question Bill, personally, I think at least chassis, body and engine need to be from the same car to call it an original car. Having said that, it only seems to matter if the car in question is either a sports model (particularly Ulster) or an early chummy. It seems that no one gives a damn if a '33 Box saloon has the original engine or even the correct lamps and horn etc.
I remember having this discussion more than forty years ago when a 1927 Austin 7 I knew about was being restored and having a new John Heath chummy body fitted. The original body for the car was an "R" type saloon or "top hat" type and was considered too far gone. Today that saloon body would have been restored, no question. At the time the argument for the chummy replacement body was that in period, many of the more expensive cars were supplied in rolling chassis form for the customer to choose their own coachbuilder, so what was the problem!
I remember having this discussion more than forty years ago when a 1927 Austin 7 I knew about was being restored and having a new John Heath chummy body fitted. The original body for the car was an "R" type saloon or "top hat" type and was considered too far gone. Today that saloon body would have been restored, no question. At the time the argument for the chummy replacement body was that in period, many of the more expensive cars were supplied in rolling chassis form for the customer to choose their own coachbuilder, so what was the problem!