Quote:
Originally Posted by lfot
Saw this today at Supercar Sunday, and I thought of Charlie.
and on another note...
Does anyone know the story with this? Is it real, but all modded? Or some sort of authorized replica? 
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The VIN placard looks like a real GT40. Original street going versions all had a "P" (for production) after the 40 model designation. The car above is tagged as a Mark 1B so it would be a car built by Abbey Panels (a very early car).
Here is where someone made a mistake indicating it is actually a replica.
Abbey was in Coventry not Slough. The other thing is in the VIN sequence NZ was not used in original GT's for race or production cars. NZ is probably the country of origin where the replica was manufactured.
The Slough address is where Eric Broadley of Lola cars was located when they moved the original Lola factory in 1963. Ford established a new subsidiary under the direction of John Wyer, Ford Advanced Vehicles Ltd to manage the GT40 project. The first GT40 chassis was built by Abbey Panels of Coventry, remainder in Slough. The body panels were made by Advanced Moldings LTD. Later to bring the program more under Ford's control the SVO Operations was sold to John Wyer and a redesign of the GT took place (hench MKIII) which was produced by Kar Kraft (Fords Styling Studio) under an infamous guy named Ed Hull.
Real or not I would gladly take it off the owners hands.