The Bell car is a 'post office red, and Paul said his Lola (my lola) was with a dark red body. He changed it to Orange to match the factory front.
The dark red could have been paint over something. Bit of a boring colour to paint a race car? Lola only did a 'red'.
The Caribbean airways is good because it shows the car was in England in 1982 and good enough to race in a good condition (it obviously passed scrutineers)
I think it was crashed. Either in the racing of 1982 or just after.
This would give the car 'time' to go downhill enough to need a full rebuild.
Paul said Owen fitted new side pods and the front body shell was obviously too far gone to repair, hence buying the new front end from the factory.
My car came to me from Mike Inglis with a new roll hoop middle and front ('dashboard') commissioned by Mike to Lola spec size, the Ghia body and hoop all scrapped just after he had it. Shame in many ways, because the front hoop sometimes were stamped with the chassis number !!!
Tony and John Sch must have removed them for the Ghia custom cage.
I have emailed Paul but no answers so far, will call him tomorrow (don't want to be a pest), but i think i need to go down to his place, get the old front body and get the engine back too or at least read the engine number.
Be nice to get the original engine for sure.(might end up with it in the car!)
If I can come back with the engine number and the spec sheet tallying then i have the evidence to claim the chassis number from Lola.
Oh so close now. Can this be true?
Be just my luck that the number is on someone else's car after all this work!
We must remember that someone took the chassis plate off this car after Tony/John's reworking.
You only do that to sell the plate or to 'lose' the car's id.
Through all this history, I do not sense that the car was stolen right along the line. I have had my doubts at times but not now.
I do think my car's plate is on a race car, what a dissapointment that will be.