Better a clear fake than a diffuse "believed-to-be"
06/04/2025
The big Swiss classic car show Swiss Classic World is already history and everyday life has caught up with us again. But some impressions have remained, one very important one being the abundance of replicas and - let's put it this way - upgrades from simple models to top-of-the-range models. With some cars, the bells ring for me in advance, not necessarily "alarm", but at least they signal: "Watch out!" This applies to most Cobras that you come across again and again. Most of the cars are replicas, and it is almost impossible to keep track of them. In very rare cases, I feel sorry for the owners of originals who are confronted with questions about their authenticity.
The same is now also true of some Grand Prix Bugatti cars. For the sake of simplicity, I'll just call them 35, 37 or 51. Isn't it a pure Sang after all? Even great patina can occasionally lead you astray. And yes, even the many Le Mans Tourer-bodied Bentleys rarely get me more excited. In most cases, I suspect a rebuild or conversion with a proportion of original parts of a few percent. That's perfectly fine! But only if it is declared correctly. I came across various "new builds" at the Swiss Classic World. As these virtually unmarked cars are then in "perfect" condition - i.e. there is nothing to criticize about paint flaws or a drop of oil - there is no doubt about their roadworthiness and eligibility for registration. Maybe that's why I could get upset...
Openly declared: a Pur-Sang Bugatti 35, built in Argentina.
So it's all the nicer when the entire history of a car is available and can be documented with pictures and chassis numbers, old traces and testimonials. Such cars were also to be found at the Swiss Classic World. I was just as pleased to discover a car that I had heard about for a long time but had never seen before: Ferdinand Hediger's Talbot Cabriolet with Worblaufen coachwork. Is this Ferdi's famous "hayloft car"? I'd have to ask.
And finally, there is one last category, which is not quite flawless, but which also clearly reveals this. Two impressive examples, such as the thoroughly original Talbot or a Pur-Sang declared as a replica, were on the stand of Oldierama from Littau at the Swiss Classic World this year: The completely rebuilt Aston-Martin DB4 GT Zagato from the former studio of Beat Roos in Frauenkappelen (Roos Engineering) and the impressive Mercedes-Benz 540K Autobahnkurier (pictured above), which - blessed with the original mechanics - has only "cheated" on the streamlined body. This is clearly labeled as a replica. And in between lies the gray area, the restomods, the Belair, which once started life as a mundane 210, and so on. But the real "joy", often only because of the entertainment value, always comes from those stories that are supposed to put a car in the vicinity of something: "Probably once owned by..." - a "believed-to-be" - and so on. Beautiful!
More Bentley than usual and a traceable history: UL4357 was launched in January 1929 as a 4.5-Litre with Weyman Saloon bodywork by Gurney Nutting, in other words a genuine Cricklewood W.O. Bentley. Probably from the 1950s until 1986, the car had an open torpedo body, but with long fenders, running boards and in red, after which the Bentley was given a Le Mans-style body by the well-known vintage Bentley dealer Stanley Mann. The - amazingly skillfully applied - patina was added in the recent past.
One thing is certain: if you go to a professional classic car dealer, you can expect to receive a clean declaration with your car - what it is in the first place. At the Swiss Classic World, wherever I asked when in doubt, I was readily given information - even if the car was a replica. Because a replica can actually be just as much fun as the original, it's just usually a bit cheaper and in some cases without the key to entry into the world's most prestigious automobile clubs and events. I could live with that.
