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Re: tiger

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:28 pm
by gtsmrt
garyv8tiger wrote:cant get more original than an alpine
If you were re-bodying an Alpine, there are significant modifications to make it a Tiger (Alger). Sure an Alpine is original, but not a Tiger!

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:40 pm
by michael-king
There seems to be a USA poster who is rather undereducated on the classic scene in his own country. There has been a recent court case in the states regarding one of the top mustang restorers and the issue of them putting the VIN's of original rusted cars (mostly GT500's) onto either repro shells and donor cars. They have stated that the cars should not cary the original numbers as the shell has been scrapped.. worth a read if people are capable of it...

The same poster also seems to to be getting confused in his response.. he seems to be a person who is only in it for $ value in the cars.. His apparent concern is that if you restore a tiger body thats rusty you will have to much money in it compared to its resale value. He contends its more economical to use an alpine body. He then states that said rebody should carry the Tiger VIN. Now if you are doing the car to keep and you are not intending on selling it, why would you not leave the alpine VIN and disclose what happened? SIMPLE.. you are trying to hide the fact it was not an original Tiger body as it would lower its value.

I think the real problem with rebodies of alpines to tigers is the fact that people who do it generally do it for financial reasons, there are some honest people who are open about the manner in which there car was restored but the vast majority conceal the fact as they feel it will hurt the value of their car.

65beam or Bob Webb has a long time problem with Tiger owners (or anyone who doesnt agree to his definitions of anything) he likes to start the alger debate and has openly declared he does not believe in the TAC system.. perhaps one day he will build a buy/restore a Tiger.. i guess he wil always choose the cheapest way to do so, seems he would not want to save the original body, just replace it with the best one he can find and then switch VIN's.. seems Bob cares more about resale value than the lineage of the car.. I hope such an individual never gets hold of a car with history like a works car.. seems he would see all the damage on the underside of a rally tiger as just a good reason to use an alpine body to "rebuild"..

In the UK there are some incredible restorations of cars, the Linder Knocker low drag e-type is a great recent example.. the car was basically destroyed in the 60's the mechanicals were placed in a recreated body by Lynx.. they never passed it off as the original car, just the origincal mechanicals in a recreated body. Since then the original body was rebuilt over years and is proof that you can restore some sorry cases, but as per the ebay car that started this debate.. sometimes a car is rusted beyond salvage.. let it create a conversion but dotn pretend its the original car.

As for the rumor Bob seems to be creating about me not wanting to have my Tiger next to converted cars.. thats 100% pure Bob Webb imagination, im happy to enjoy my sunbeams, alpines, tigers, converted cars and v6's etc.. I dont like dishonesty and shameless profiteering and deception.. then again.. some people just like to be dishonest..... be it hiding rebodied cars or just staring rumors as they have nothing better to do. :roll: as with all things in life "buyer beware" and in the case of some people its a little more obvous that give the chance they will deceive if its in their interest.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 12:25 am
by Red Race Tiger
Alpines, Tigers, Converted and V6's...... and buyer beware :idea:

Beware of what Micheal? A car that quite possibly has had more care and attention to detail than the original and has been reshelled with the same shell that the car came from in the first place ie an Alpine

We are all missing the point, we're not talking about an Alpine with a Cologne V6 stuffed into it or a 302 or wotever for that matter, if say for instance i would have bought the car that started this thread the B947.... escapes me now but if i had? the restoration costs would have been in the 10's of thousands and the resultant car would have lasted way behond my lifetime and enjoyed as a Tiger which is what it would have been.

All Tiger's possibly with the exception of the Mk2's all started life as Alpine's, so surely buy useing a shell that the car derived from makes no odd's.

I can see a time where "Reshelled" with rust free will become desireable rather than the "Alger" hide it away attitude that we have now. If i were new to this game rust free rather than welded up and festering away would be a No Brainer.

I'd choose the rebody anyday along with some sort of TAC'ish cert to the effect that a reshell has been carried out to a specified and accepted standard and is as period.

Provided all the components were Tiger and it carried a genuine Tiger ID without any dodgy history wher's the foul?

That way youv'e got the behond doubt Hi End originals and the "reshelled"

It's a win win :idea:

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 4:38 am
by gtsmrt
Was any of the body worth saving from that Tiger anyway? With the amount of rusty parts, it would have taken thousand of dollars restoring them to put on a Tiger. I agree that if you wish to re-shell a Tiger, it should certainly be documented as such but sadly in reality they are very rarely brought to the buyers attention. That is why the buyer should beware. Yes, the Alpine bodies were modified to become a Tiger at the factory making them a true Tiger. The owner has the right to do what ever they wish to their car, re-body it all they like and yes it will be rust free and desirable but it is still not a true Tiger. As long as the owner is not deceptive about it being re-bodied, most people would not care.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:50 am
by michael-king
Red Race Tiger wrote:Alpines, Tigers, Converted and V6's...... and buyer beware :idea:

Beware of what Micheal? A car that quite possibly has had more care and attention to detail than the original and has been reshelled with the same shell that the car came from in the first place ie an Alpine

We are all missing the point, we're not talking about an Alpine with a Cologne V6 stuffed into it or a 302 or wotever for that matter, if say for instance i would have bought the car that started this thread the B947.... escapes me now but if i had? the restoration costs would have been in the 10's of thousands and the resultant car would have lasted way behond my lifetime and enjoyed as a Tiger which is what it would have been.

All Tiger's possibly with the exception of the Mk2's all started life as Alpine's, so surely buy useing a shell that the car derived from makes no odd's.

I can see a time where "Reshelled" with rust free will become desireable rather than the "Alger" hide it away attitude that we have now. If i were new to this game rust free rather than welded up and festering away would be a No Brainer.

I'd choose the rebody anyday along with some sort of TAC'ish cert to the effect that a reshell has been carried out to a specified and accepted standard and is as period.

Provided all the components were Tiger and it carried a genuine Tiger ID without any dodgy history wher's the foul?

That way youv'e got the behond doubt Hi End originals and the "reshelled"

It's a win win :idea:
Paul, for starters if you are going to quote me dont edit it and take out several lines of text to make a throw away line. i said "im happy to enjoy my sunbeams, alpines, tigers, converted cars and v6's etc.. I dont like dishonesty and shameless profiteering and deception" i can easily cut and edit your posts to read totally differently.. are you trying to bring news of the world to STOC?

You seem to miss my point.. so lets slow it down for you.. as i have said.. there are many converted cars that are in better condition, better restored or modified to be better than many restored tigers... no harm no foul.

Im not questioning workmanship.. im questioning the need to put a Tiger VIN on the car... the problem is.. people dont switch the Tiger VIN on and then talk about how they rebodied it.. they just rebody it and present it as all original jensen work.. hence the deception.

You suggest some sort of TAC system from the rebodied cars.. i think thats great.. problem is who decides what is the acceptable standard.. i assume you have been under a real tiger.. if someone came to you with an alger and the welds were to rootes/jensen standards.. i would think you would not be very impressed.. one of the easy give aways on a rebody is the welding is often MUCH better.. then there is the issue that most people dont want people to know their cars are rebodies.. hence back to the original problem.

To me alger is not a negative word.. it describes an alpine has been rebodied with a tiger driveline and parts. The ex-owner of my Silver MKIA still owns a race tiger, and he had a very rusty tiger MKI and a very clean Alpine SV.. he has restored that car to be an alger, and the time and money on it would outstrip many a real tiger resto.

He proudly kept the alpine VIN and the alpine badges.. he's not trying to trick anyone.. nobody will get confused, he built the car to enjoy and show. He sold the silver car after the resto as he felt it to nice to take on track days and lare about in it as he used pre-resto,hence lost the enjoyment.. now in the alger despite how nice it is nobody worries he is risking a tiger when he has his fun.. and he could modify it to his personal preference wihtout people telling him he ruined a nice stock car.

I have no issues with conversions.. but i have yet to see a good reason why someone would need to switch the VINs on a car other than to represent it as something it wasnt originaly.

If you get a heart transplant and kidney from someoone else you are still you with a few essential items from John Doe... they dont change your name and drivers permit... the body contains the identity not the parts.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:59 am
by michael-king
gtsmrt wrote:Was any of the body worth saving from that Tiger anyway? With the amount of rusty parts, it would have taken thousand of dollars restoring them to put on a Tiger. I agree that if you wish to re-shell a Tiger, it should certainly be documented as such but sadly in reality they are very rarely brought to the buyers attention. That is why the buyer should beware. Yes, the Alpine bodies were modified to become a Tiger at the factory making them a true Tiger. The owner has the right to do what ever they wish to their car, re-body it all they like and yes it will be rust free and desirable but it is still not a true Tiger. As long as the owner is not deceptive about it being re-bodied, most people would not care.
Rob, I agree with 100% of what you have said.... Sadly it raises some questions about cars down here that were restored to sell. We have a TAC system down here and i gather vested interests will encourage certain owners not to go through that process for obvious reasons.

As a side note cars that dont pass TAC are not labelled fakes, copies etc.. they simply state that during the inspection that they could not find enough evidence of jensen production techniques on the presented unibody.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:12 am
by Tomaselli
Red Race Tiger wrote:but lift up the rear cushion on a Tiger 2 and there's no cut out for the battery box in the floor as in the Alpine? so me thinks that proberbly by 67 there was indeed a dedicated Rootes/Pressed Steel Tiger shell by that time.
Now this is what I was trying to determine earlier, did Pressed Steel just send a 'random' selection of Alpine bodies to Jensen for conversion or was there a dedicated production line at Pressed Steel who had a line of specific bodies fabricated for delivery to Jensen, to be ultimately built as Tigers.

The rear panel seat on the MK2 Tiger is indeed different, so there was a 'Tiger' line of bodies at Pressed Steel?

Re: tiger

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:40 am
by garyv8tiger
gtsmrt wrote:If you were re-bodying an Alpine, there are significant modifications to make it a Tiger (Alger). Sure an Alpine is original, but not a Tiger!
yes and the main 2 being the tophats which would come form your original tiger and the tunnel also from your original tiger .
what some posters are saying is you can replace all your car with new metal and thats ok .but you cant use an original sunbeam shell and put the tiger mods on it .seems the problem is what %of the car is original.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:51 am
by gtsmrt
michael-king wrote:Rob, I agree with 100% of what you have said.... Sadly it raises some questions about cars down here that were restored to sell. We have a TAC system down here and i gather vested interests will encourage certain owners not to go through that process for obvious reasons.

As a side note cars that dont pass TAC are not labelled fakes, copies etc.. they simply state that during the inspection that they could not find enough evidence of jensen production techniques on the presented unibody.
Unfortunately Michael there are always going to be the exceptions. I was talking to a guy who is also on this forum who's Tiger was close to mine in production. The issue he had was unusual parts installed on his car. There was no question about the body, the issue lie in the mis-match of parts which may effect the TAC. Having finally confirmed numbers on my Tiger with Norman Miller, he suggested having my Tiger TACed, but at the end of the day I'm not that fussed.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 11:04 am
by gtsmrt
Tomaselli wrote:
Red Race Tiger wrote:but lift up the rear cushion on a Tiger 2 and there's no cut out for the battery box in the floor as in the Alpine? so me thinks that proberbly by 67 there was indeed a dedicated Rootes/Pressed Steel Tiger shell by that time.
Now this is what I was trying to determine earlier, did Pressed Steel just send a 'random' selection of Alpine bodies to Jensen for conversion or was there a dedicated production line at Pressed Steel who had a line of specific bodies fabricated for delivery to Jensen, to be ultimately built as Tigers.

The rear panel seat on the MK2 Tiger is indeed different, so there was a 'Tiger' line of bodies at Pressed Steel?
It's really hard to tell unless someone who may have worked for Rootes can tell us. In my opinion, I don't think they were randomly picked. You would have thought that a run on bodies in a particular week would have been transferred. I find it hard to believe that a painted body would have been sent to Jensen and then modified (as previously stated somewhere) even with some of the backward ways that Rootes operated. There were also the GT Tigers as well which you would think would have been done together. Maybe we will never know Tony.

Re: tiger

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 11:09 am
by gtsmrt
garyv8tiger wrote:but you cant use an original sunbeam shell and put the tiger mods on it .seems the problem is what %of the car is original.
I really don't think it matters Gary. Even if you swap those few things over, there is still some tell tale Tiger mods that would be missed and not consistent with Jensen. It would still essentially be a modified Alpine.

Re: tiger

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 11:22 am
by garyv8tiger
anything done by jensen can be reproduced by any half decent panel beater .the quality was diy .
and a tiger is a modified alpine .without the alpine there would be no tiger

Re: tiger

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 11:31 am
by gtsmrt
Absolutely no disputes there Gary on where the Tiger evolved from and a Tiger can certainly be reproduced. I'm all for saving Tiger's, as long as they can be saved. Sometimes it's better to just right off a known rusty wreck than to just reappear in immaculate condition. Raises too many questions in my opinion.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:08 pm
by martin172
Tomaselli wrote:Now this is what I was trying to determine earlier, did Pressed Steel just send a 'random' selection of Alpine bodies to Jensen for conversion or was there a dedicated production line at Pressed Steel who had a line of specific bodies fabricated for delivery to Jensen, to be ultimately built as Tigers.

The rear panel seat on the MK2 Tiger is indeed different, so there was a 'Tiger' line of bodies at Pressed Steel?

I've always had the impression that they were randonly chosen when Jensen asked for more shells.
The VIN and JAL numbers don't follow a consistent pattern on Tiger shells which would indicate randomness.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:17 pm
by Tomaselli
Fair comment Martin, but am still non the wiser why MK2 Tigers and Alpine SV bodies were different at Pressed Steel, so there must have been something on the assembly line to distinguish between Tiger bodies from Alpine shells, and maybe this was only the case towards the final Rootes production. As Robin says we will perhaps never find out? :shock: