Are vehicle documents the authorization for reproduction?
We are always amazed at cars that are practically restored to a new condition. Ideally, many of the original parts are still present and the car still has a lot in common with the car produced many decades ago. But this is not always the case.
Technically, it is of course possible to rebuild cars completely from scratch. For a Ford Mustang or an MGB, you can order the parts by mail order, so to speak, and then build a new car. Of course, the car can only be registered if old vehicle documents are available. However, the pleasure will not be cheap, because if the individual spare parts have to be procured at today's prices, the new car assembled in the garage at home will certainly cost considerably more than an original vehicle, at least in the case of the Mustang or the MGB. The situation is of course different for more expensive vehicles, where a faithful reproduction is worthwhile. Companies such as Pur Sang in Argentina have turned this into a business model. But even in our part of the world, classics are obviously being recreated, as a recently published news item suggests .
The spectrum between a completely original classic, still equipped with the first tires and plugs, and a completely rebuilt "classic", in which hardly any part matches a component manufactured back then, is huge. And you may hardly notice any difference when driving. But this should not justify rebuilding "new cars" as original classics and marketing them as "originals".
