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Replica military vehicles should be clearly labelled as such and no one should try to pass them off as the real thing, writes Jim Dowdall
The vintage vehicle and aeroplane community has long been at odds with what constitutes a ‘genuine’ machine.
If the rarest of machines is ‘restored’ using mostly refabricated parts (given the engineering skills seemingly available these days) does that then detract from the historical significance?
In the world of aircraft restoration, it is now possible to build a totally new aeroplane if one has obtained just the manufacturer’s plate from inside the original aircraft, which shows the date and place of manufacture and the original frame number.
Based on that, for a Spitfire for instance, there are now completely modern-made manufactured parts to build the aeroplane from scratch. How does one designate this aeroplane? Is it a ‘fake’, a ‘restoration’ or as many would classify a representative of a bygone era and worthwhile ‘heritage’ to be left for future generations?
Post World War One and World War Two saw huge quantities of surplus machinery sold into the civilian market. Genuine spare parts were available to maintain running and spares were cheap…
