Originally posted by ozbilt
Many have been busted in the US for doing just that. Creating titles on "new" cars as old ones (most common is hot rods). Boyd Coddington is probably the best known person caught. I believe it cost him over US250K in fines & court costs, also had to go on the speaking trail, warning car groups against doing the same. Not that he lived long after that anyway.
Shelby also got caught trying to pass these off, back in the 90's, so he was quick to point out that these were sold as "race cars only" & were not for the road. I know a few are registered now, but 'what as', I could not tell you. So maybe he got around this as a limited manufacturer, but they would be considered "new" cars.
Other issue is that both DOTAS, Aussie Customs & your local RTA are not stupid. They are all 'up to speed' with these cars. The cars would have to pass the relevant ADRs applicable to when they were built.
There are major differences to an original Cobra & these new ones. Even the chassis design has some differences. Also drivetrain improvements etc. They are fairly easy to pick.
shermatt - never heard of anyone being busted for what you're suggesting. we may have our wires crossed. there are several states in the US where these early "continuation cars" can legitimately be titled as 65 (or whatever) cars - nothing underhanded or fraudulent - and then sold as such.
from what i'm being led to believe, the 65 title plus an appropriate MSO (manufacturer's statement of origin) plus all requisite export / import approvals is what is needed to legitimately import the car as a 65, and register it as same.
re major differences to the original cobras (ie the CSX2000 cars) and these ones - i agree. improvements to the chassis, suspension, etc have been engineered in to the CSX4000 cars as you would expect. you can definitely tell the CSX4000 cars from the CSX2000 cars (apart from a couple of hundred thousand difference in price !!) but i'm thinking they'd still be a whole lot more collectable than any of the Superformance / Factory Five etc clones that are simply clones, with no common DNA or provenance to the original cars.
the fact that (a) they're in the registry as 'continuation cobra's', (b) built at shelby american (body's supplied by kirkham) and (c) have shelby's blessing (and signature) positions them halfway between the real CSX2000 cars (costing in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars) and the 'kit cars' which are cheap, non-original in almost every way, and are priced at US$30-60K for a 'good' car.
open to opinions though... thats why i posted the question!
over.
