Original Ulster for sale

[Tony Griffiths]

Wot you lot moaning about? There's all the free extra Hematite oozing out, some ace welding on the exhaust to admire, lots of lovely rust to polish off and a veritable feat of neat touches and high-quality finishes to stand back and marvel at. It looks to have been screwed together by an expert - thought an expert at what, I'm unsure.

[Charles P]

It's always worth remembering that there's a lot of fantasy in asking prices of all type - original-ish cars and long chassis Ulsteroids included.
Tony Betts carefully says £25K for the best replica (fair, but they still sell slowly in that range) and JF322 was a well publicised auction car, so a true market price.

Charles

[JonE]

Also what does batch 7 mean? I think I know what they mean but as some of the ledgers are missing no one really knows.

They mean nothing.

Merely for assessing patterns/position I've just grouped any multiple consecutive EA chassis in the known ledgers where we can apply logic. So 'batches' reset for each new car number but could be two, three, nine... or a single car. 

Where the ledgers are lost, you can still partially assess likely batches/groups from extant cars and chassis which are pretty close in number to estimate lost cars. That's certainly how I've estimated the total bodies and I'm sure others have done the same!

In some batches/groups, there are so many present that it just spurs one on to be forensic about tracing the missing ones.

[austin]

So it's your fault Jon! 

Have we got to the Rolt Batch, the Roach batch & the Yates batch yet?

[Martin Prior]

There's so much cautious wording in the description as to make it utterly meaningless.

It's a nice looking car, but I can see nothing that justifies the price tag.

[Hedd_Jones]

Wot you lot moaning about? There's all the free extra Hematite oozing out, some ace welding on the exhaust to admire, lots of lovely rust to polish off and a veritable feat of neat touches and high-quality finishes to stand back and marvel at. It looks to have been screwed together by an expert - thought an expert at what, I'm unsure.

I wondered if perhaps they had been launching boats with it at the seaside!

The 'extra long' fixings would soon become a chore. Especially that engine mounting bolt where your arm Isn't long enough to get at both ends at the same time.

[JonE]

So it's your fault Jon! 

Have we got to the Rolt Batch, the Roach batch & the Yates batch yet?

well, it does seem it's the chassis which easiest alerts to some 'continuity' and that a body existed there. But with Nippies and EA, there are equally numbered bodies which are now on unoriginal chassis but their body can at least contribute more information - particularly if it's a very late number which might extend the range. 

re. the latter, some original cars are now going to have new bodies and nothing wrong with that - that's life. The post on GW 82 was really trying to find out more about that.... i.e. in early days what could have happened and after being crashed in the 60s. Its not 'bad' or 'good', just extremely interesting, especially where it is verifiable through (your!) photos. But the Rolt/Roach/Yates batch question is a bit meaningless, isn't it?

One thought - virtually nobody is commenting on what's put up on that site! I find that very odd as it's all there to be questioned. Same with the orange car. It seems on balance that it could be an original chassis which is why I put it up there with the photos which were available at the time for people to interrogate further. Would be nice if the comments on axle made here, for instance, could be added there.

[Mike Costigan]

I would have thought that the body was the least significant component of the original car; after all, many, well several, 'Ulsters' were supplied as rolling chassis. At least one had an Arrow body, and all the Australian cars were bodied locally.

[Hedd_Jones]

With hindsight there have been many poor decisions made in the restoration of historic cars.

I'm not talking about what went on when the cars were still being used as 'current' cars in period, but subsequently once the historic nature of the cars was understood.

I had understood that the number of 'real' sports with continuous known history could be counted on one hand, and were well known and thus the most valuable. Whearas there are many others with some degree of pedigree, but the right parts, or a good many of the right parts. Some more with some right parts and some or no pedigree, then out and out replicas of varying quality.

Value Highest to lowest in the same Order.

What im really saying is the high end ulster game is not that different to what the Bugatti mob were up to. Some 'Ulsters' are pretty pukka, they are what they are no argument. Some are 'built' from a pukka engine. some from a 'pukka' chassis, Some from a pukka body. Some have more pukka bits than others. No doubt some builders have even been to look at what ledgers there are, or studied the chassis register and took a view what number to stamp on the chassis, or what might be a likely reg number (OF seems popular).

I guess the dogs danglies is a blown engine like Tonys, a replica blown engine like Charles has and is building probably 2nd followed by the genuine unblown versions etc. I guess all for discussion.

If your in the market you need to take a view and pay what you think. If your not (like me), its all hot air.

What is clear however is that generally, that less notice is being taken of fact and originality. Go to Goodwood, and while there are real cars with very real history. Most of the ERA's for example with continuous racing history. But on the other hand there are a lot of vehicles with made up and known false histories presented as something they are not. Even in VSCC circles there seems to be a fad now to build some sort of aero engined monster, find and engine, an obscure foreign radiator (with badge), then put that on the front of what amounts to a small truck chassis and bingo. ''Its a 1915 Giraffe Special''. Cough cough (Bullshit).

[Ivor Hawkins]

Hedd, I’m in full agreement with everything you have said.

At various historic events these days, I spend most of the time trying to find genuine cars...try and find a nicely patinated Riley Falcon these days...it seems most have been turned into race replicas or sports specials...or in my view, hot rods.

This particular Ulster/special has a few nice bits though and as Tony points out demand will crank up the price, particularly amongst those who really don’t care about automotive history.