Replica
A newly built car modelled on a historic original – from honest tribute to factory continuation. Not a historic vehicle: legitimate when declared, a fake when passed off as an original.
A replica is a car built only later on the model of a historic original – ranging from a free interpretation on another car's base, through faithful copies, to the 'continuation' that the original manufacturer itself relaunches in a small series. What all share is this: the car was not created in the historic period but after it.
This sets the replica fundamentally apart from the bitsa and the special: those at least consist mostly of period components, whereas the replica is at heart a new car. Accordingly it is not a historic vehicle in the federations' sense – a FIVA ID-Card or an HTP is out of the question, and at events run to FIVA or Appendix K standards it is generally not eligible. At touring and club events the supplementary regulations decide; some expressly admit high-quality replicas.
What matters for value and standing is honesty: a declared replica is a legitimate way to experience rare or unaffordable cars on the road – though its market value remains far below the original's. Things turn delicate at the question of identity: giving a replica the chassis number or history of an original crosses into forgery. When buying, the same applies as with matching numbers: check numbers, papers and history carefully.
Glossary from A to Z
Related terms
Matching numbers
Collector term for a vehicle whose major components (engine, gearbox, axle, frame) still carry the original numbers that match one another and the factory records – an indicator of originality, not of identity.
Bitsa
British collector slang (from 'bits of this and that') for a car assembled from parts of various vehicles – the opposite of a matching-numbers car.
Special
A deliberately and skilfully built one-off, usually created for sporting purposes from period components – the kinder sibling of the bitsa, especially in the pre-war world.