In view of some of the above comments, it is suggested that those who are not interested, or who have not read the Judgement, should read no further. Barry Bird’s comments, however, are spot on and registrars should only record facts and not categorise.
Some contributors to this debate continue to cling to past beliefs and home-made rules and pretend that the Appeal Court’s judgement has not occurred as reported and as I quote from it below.
1. Amongst the laws in this country, there is Statute Law which is created by an Act of Parliament and also Case Law which is decided in the High Court by a judge. If an issue is to be tested in the High Court for which there is no know antecedent, then it is known as a Test Case. Once a judgement has been made it passes into Case Law. That judgement is taken as a precedent for settling subsequent cases involving the same question of law. Should a judge’s decision be challenged, the matter can be referred to the Court of Appeal which is presided over by three judges. They may overturn, uphold or even embellish the original decision. Costs, as in the case of Brewer v Mann are often considerable and may be awarded against the losing party. A ruling by the Court of Appeal can be overturned by the Supreme Court. This recently replaced the House of Lords as this country’s highest court.
2. In the case of Brewer v Mann, the Court of Appeal sat in March 2012. The full Judgement Approved by the Court for handing down can be seen at
www.wilmotslitigation.com. In 43. It quotes an expert witness as saying “the definitive test of a car being a Bentley Speed Six is that it contains some part of its original chassis number stamped upon it. In all other respects the car may have been entirely rebuilt. It is only in this respect that the car need be or can perhaps be said to be original or authentic. This is a definition which he says is accepted and acknowledged by the prestigious Bentley Drivers’ Club and by the DVLA authorities and is recognised in the market generally and internationally. He says he is supported in that approach by the evidence of both expert witnesses at trial”.
Note the DVLA’s policy on this matter as is stated above and again later in 52. of the Judgement in 6. below.
Also, see 113. “6.14” ...... I am quite satisfied that this car is a rebuilt Speed Six Bentley and not a reconstruction. It is difficult, in any event, to be exact about these terms, but the fact is that this car has an original chassis with original parts on it, ...... 6.15 in the Vintage and Classic Car world generally the chassis is regarded as the identity of the car in any event. This is partly historical because Bentleys and other major manufactures of quality cars generally sold their cars in chassis form together with the bulkhead, engine, gearbox and running gear, and it was up to the owner to decide what body, interior fittings, lights etc he would install on that chassis. Chassis might undergo a number of body styles in their life. Provided, however, the chassis remains intact, it is accepted that the car’s identity remains as it was when it was manufactured”. Different bodies have often been fitted to Cobra chassis as the Register shows.
3. Robin Stainer quotes in the Cobra Register that COB 6036 was “re-built with a new chassis and body (by Autokraft) using the original engine (NB this was not the car’s first engine) and transmission and some suspension components in 1985. The original chassis (undamaged) and certain other components not used in the rebuild were discarded and passed to Ralph Goray in part settlement of a debt in 1985”. The original chassis was therefore not discarded, i.e. thrown out. To say that is very misleading. It was considered of monetary worth to part settle a debt and the Thames Ditton built chassis frame continued to exist as a uniquely serial numbered physical entity as stamped by its original manufacturer, AC Cars. Serial numbers were also stamped on radiators, cylinder heads, engine blocks, gear boxes, rear axles etc. When COB 6036 had an engine change, its serial number would not have been “transferred”.
4. Robin Stainer has stated the original chassis was undamaged but “fire singed”. How long does it take to strip, shot blast and repaint an undamaged chassis, more time than it takes to build a new one? The fact that the chassis has been reused proves that it could have been used as the frame for the new car built by Angliss and by so doing would have preserved its provenance and Thames Ditton origin.
At the very heart of this matter is that the original Thames Ditton built chassis has survived along with its stamped serial number and documentation and was returned to Germany in 1985 and passed to Ralph Goray. The new Angliss Autokraft built car also went back to Germany to be later sold on.
5. In the 1980s the Driver Vehicle Licensing Centre (later the DVLA) was created with a national computerised database. It assumed control of this from the British County Councils. All original car green/buff logbooks had to be returned to be exchanged for a computerised Vehicle Registration Document. Failure to do this by a certain date meant that an original registration number might be lost, reallocated or sold. A large number of cars in storage, restoration etc failed to do this and some are still fighting to get their original numbers back. Not all are successful after all this time. COB 6036 being in Germany, repaired or not, was not in the record and could well have had the same problem with its number CGY 226. However, see the DVLA’s policy confirmed in the Judgement below in paragraph, 6.
6. Following Mann’s Court of Appeal victory adjudicated by Lords Justice Rix, Sullivan and Lewison, Solicitors Wilmot & Co published the main points of the Court Judgement which has been described as “a landmark decision for the classic car world”. In their summary of the main points, Item 3, as Administrator, quoted on 18th July, states “the identity of a car is to be determined by reference to the custom in the classic car trade. It MAY (his capitals) be derived from a part of the chassis with the original chassis number attached to it”. This is perfectly clear because if there is no part of the original chassis remaining, then it follows that the identity of a car CANNOT be deprived from it, prima facie. If a car has a continuous history like Paddy’s axe with new chassis and bodies over the years, all old parts having been destroyed, then that is another matter entirely if there are no remains of the original chassis to act as competition. Michael Grenfell, a solicitor at Wilmots, in his statement to the Press, said that as a result of the Court of Appeal ruling “The identity of a car is to be derived from the chassis even if only a part of it remains if it retains the chassis number”. See also threads on Wilmots site, ie Mail on line “car cannot be a fake despite only original part being its chassis”.
This ruling has now passed into Case Law and exists as a precedent against which any future issues may be judged. The original undamaged chassis of COB 6036 survived and has been repatriated to England. It has been
(a) Authenticated by AC Cars Ltd
(b) Inspected by Brian Gilbart-Smith, the ACOC’s official delegate for the DVLC
(c) Inspected by the DVLA and Police along with its file of papers recording its continuous history from new.
The Judge found, see 52. of the Judgement;
“to ensure that an apparently moribund previously issued registration number was not re-issued to a different car, the DVLC had always adopted the policy of only re-issuing such a number to a car which had within it the original chassis number irrespective of what other changes had occurred to the car”.
Consequently, and belatedly, COB 6036 has been issued with a DVLA Registration Document showing the Chassis Number which the original frame has always had stamped on it along with its registration number CGY 226B which fortunately had not been re-allocated as stated above in paragraph 5. This also tallies with what the expert witnesses have stated, as quoted in paragraph 2 above, as always having been the policy of the DVLA. As a result of the Court of Appeal ruling, the DVLA’s previous policy is now enshrined in law.
The article in July’s Action on Identity and Law was not reproduced as submitted. Some was edited out. It contained some useful free and potentially relevant advice for any club. Omitted was this.
“I ran this past a friend of mine who is a High Court Judge asking what, if any, were the implications for a car club if any of its publications in the public domain now contained statements which do not comply with this Judgement. He said that firstly, an aggrieved party would need to take issue with a club, if they wished, over any published inaccuracy which is now contrary to law according to this latest ruling. Secondly, he said that if any aggrieved party could prove financial loss had been incurred because of any such statements or information published under the auspices of a car club which were found to be legally untrue as a result of this judgement and that club had knowingly ignored it, then that person could have a case for seeking damages from that club. His advice that any such club registers which may contain categorical statements should be amended in view of the Appeal Court ruling”.
Mention has been made of the German version of the British V5C document where it is known as the Fahrzengbrief document. This has no meaning on which rules apply in the UK any more than our laws apply to Germany. The German car has one such document. The British car has got the V5C one to which it would have been entitled had it remained in the UK.
The DVLA has rules for a rebuilt or radically altered car to retain its numbers. These are based on a points system; original numbered chassis 5, suspension 2, axles 2, transmission 2, steering 2, engine 1. At least 8 must be scored. The DVLA rules state that if a replacement chassis is to retain the original’s number, the ORIGINAL MUST BE DESTROYED AND RENDERED UNUSABLE AGAIN. That did NOT happen.
This thread all began with a question “COB 6036 which is the original?” According to the DVLA and this Judgement and Wilmots’ Michael Grenfell’s statement to the Press as reported in Classic & Sports Car, Steve Gray’s car is the original. If this original undamaged chassis does not meet the criteria, then what exactly was the “Landmark decision” for the classic car trade?
