Re: Rebodied cars and do they get certified
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While we are exploring situations here:
A car has a firewall job done when it was only 1.5 years old as a repair while under insurance. The firewall effort was not concealed, and was just ripped across the floorboards - rockers and all. The original green paint is still visible on this blue car.
What is it? Is it acceptable as a repair? The motive at the time it was done was to repair it, not to defraud anyone.
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Aren't cars this badly damaged normally totalled by the insurance company? And, if someone pieces two cars together, a salvage title is issued? I just don't think this sounds like a realistic scenario.
-Sam
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Believe me Sam it's a realistic scenario with a real world Supercar. Take into consideration what some of these cars cost when they were new, and that most of them shared essentially the same body shells as their much less expesive counterparts. If a Supercar got wrecked when it still had alot of value, or alot of $ was still owed on the loan it's entirely feasable that the repair would be deemed more economical by simply using the Supercar's original drivetrain and firewall, but most of the body from another wrecked, and less expensive model of the same vehicle. Again, back when the said Supercar was only a year or so old, it wasn't reconstructed with fradulent intentions in mind, or in an attempt to make something out of nothing, only to repair a very expensive, very badly damaged, essentially brand new low mileage car.
What isn't known is how or why this real world scenario occured, or what the true story of the original body is, only that it's been gone prior to the current owner picking it up when it was less than 2 years old. The interesting twist here, is that the current owner has never even really owned the "original Supercar" body only what's been grafted to the original Supercar cowl some 30 odd years ago. The car is definitely a "rebody" by all definitions with all but it's original cowl MIA, but the rub is it's all he's ever known, and it is the car he's owned and enjoyed driving for years.
Now the real hypothetical is what if the rebodied Supercar that got rebodied back in the first 1-2 years of the car's life goes on to make some real race history for itself with the "donor" body? What if we learned tomorrow that Ed Hedrick's DY sYc Camaro was rebodied when it was only a few months old? We do know it had the quarter panel smashed and replaced after a flat towing incident which is actually why that particular car was given to Ed, but let's pretend the damage was so extensive it required a firewall job before Don handed it over to Ed. If you found that car today, what would you call it? It would definitely still be a "rebody" by definition, but I probably couldn't help but call it the Holy Grail. Interesting discussion...
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