Why do some sellers encourage buyers to destroy a good car?

[phillips]

Hi all, my wife and I have owned our Ruby MK2 for over 40 years now and we fiend the Ruby a pleasant place to be. It will cruise at a decent speed, is fairly quiet, and has nice road manners. We did have a RK Saloon and that was a totally different car to drive. All sevens are better than a Morris 8  Happy new year all. S&P

[Charles P]

If you don't know this garage - and I'm sure everyone does - here's a treat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIxlql0Ebnc

He refers to the Pursang car as a 'replica Type 35 Bugatti'. No it's not. I've lost count of the number of times Barry Clarke would correct us when such cars were referred to as as 'replicas'. He would insist that 'replicas' can only be made by the original manufacturer and what we should say is 'copy'. If you read Jenks' definition of the various terms he used for describing the provenance or otherwise of cars (Original, Genuine, Authentic, Resurrection, Re-construction, Facsimile, Special, Duplication, Destroyed, Scrapped, Broken Up, and Converted) he makes the same point. 

Steve

Exactly as original, except for that god awful looking distributor poking through the dash, the plain bearings and a different firing order.
Nothing major, because they left file marks on the inside of the bonnet.


c

[Alan]

Which would you rather have? A Pur Sang type 35 or no type 35 at all?

[Ruairidh Dunford]

It sounds and looks superb - a lot of fun, I'd be happy.

[Charles P]

Which would you rather have? A Pur Sang type 35 or no type 35 at all?

I'd spent the £250K on a nice, tickety-boo, Nash

c

[Alan]

That wasn’t the question.

[Ray White]

I suggest that if someone has no intention of restoring that Ruby - or even just making it road worthy - because they are hell bent on creating a so called "special" it will not have been the vendor's suggestions in the advert that brings about it's demise.

It is simply a sad reflection of the times in which we live that our motoring heritage is regarded with disdain by, mainly, a generation more in tune with smart phones than old cars..

[David Stepney]

Almost 50 years ago (my, doesn’t time fly!),when I first moved up to Birmingham, I made the acquaintance of an elderly gentleman who had an ARQ Ruby that he had bought new from Thomas Startins in 1935. He was a retired chauffeur and the car was like a new pin, with a genuine 66k miles on the clock. It was an exceedingly nice car to drive and one could imagine just what good cars they must have been when new. I personally don’t like the Dick Butzi design, which is why I run an RP, which is another good usable car, but that doesn’t mean that a well sorted Ruby is not a very good car. Indeed, my great grandson, Leon, wants one.

[Charles P]

That wasn’t the question.

[Ivor Hawkins]

I used to love driving my Mark II Ruby and it was perfectly practical transport, but when I sold it to an active VSCC racer, he used to run in his Ulster type racing engines in it and that certainly ensured it kept up with modern traffic!