Philosophical question: When is it no longer that car?

"This is my grandfathers old axe. My father replaced the handle and I have replaced the head."

At what point of modification do the car seizes to be the original car? (I have no other reason for this thread but to share the gems that roll around in my head with other similarly disturbed individuals.)

If I slap an LS1 in a Miata, it’s still a Miata. It’s just a Miata with an LS.

My buddy has a Toyota celica racing car, with a longitudinal Volvo engine driving the rear wheels thru an after market gearbox and a custom axle setup. Between front and rear firewall, it’s all Celica, but both front and rear of that, it is all tube frame. The external body is the original steel, but widened and with plenty of aero mods. Is it still a Celica… but a much more awesome celica?

My other friend is competing with a Lotus Europa. The outer shell is glass and carbon fiber. The chassi is a tube frame and the drive train is from VW. The floor and the big center “tunnel”/support structure is however from an Europa, as well as some details in the suspension. Is it a Lotus Europa?

If I slam my civic yo yo and slap on some sweet rims lol and roll da streets totally dragging like sick dude… it’s still a Civic.

Discuss.

To me, as soon as you go full tube frame, it's no longer whatever it once was.

If it's still unibody, even with altered sheetmetal, maybe with tube ends hung off it, itt's still whatever it started out as.

So the Celica is still a Celica, but the Europa is no longer a Europa except for convenience of nomenclature.  The floor pan is irrelevant since it is full tube frame, and you can hang whatever panels you want on the outside.

First, you need to share photos of your friend's cars. Second, I am not sure where the line is, but this "Camry" is way over it. 

Unless Toyota is offering a 2-door, V8, RWD, tube frame Camry as an option I am unaware of, I will check the "build and price" configurator on their site.

I also know that "titled as a..." usually means that it is far from whatever you are claiming. 

Nope, they dont offer one. 

Reminds me of the guy that showed up with a Foxbody front end on a 240 and wanted to run CAM...

From a philosophical standpoint, if you "started with" a Miata, and replaced parts along the way, but maintained the overall shape and most of the sheetmetal, you would answer the question of "What is it?" with something like "It's a Miata with an LS engine, a T56, a Cobra rear end, and custom carbon fiber flared fenders", which would be different than "It's a custom tube chassis car with an LS engine, a T56, a Cobra rear end, and I dropped a carbon fiber body that looks like a Miata over it."

Since I'm sort of an American muscle guy, Mike DuSold's Camaro is more custom than it is Camaro, but very definitely a Camaro, mostly because he is the one who replaced the handle and the head.  Maybe it's more of an evolutionary thing?  Like if you race it in a more stock configuration and slowly change out parts, it retains its identity more than if you just drop a custom body over a tube chassis?

Silhouette Mini Racers 70s/80s.

Minis were the worst as I don't think I ever saw one with an A-Series engine.

Maybe that was also across the board.

Maybe NASCAR should be renamed 'Silhouette Racing Reborn.'

Duke said:

So the Celica is still a Celica, but the Europa is no longer a Europa except for convenience of nomenclature.  The floor pan is irrelevant since it is full tube frame, and you can hang whatever panels you want on the outside.

But the Europa still has its original backbone frame with tubes added to it, so what now?

In reply to GameboyRMH :

The OP said "The chassi is a tube frame".  To me that makes the monocoque / tunnel structure irrelevant.  It's a tube frame car and whatever panels or pans you hang from it are optional, so it really is no longer X car.  It is something that is shaped like X car.

YMMV.

Duke said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

The OP said "The chassi is a tube frame".  To me that makes the monocoque / tunnel structure irrelevant.  It's a tube frame car and whatever panels or pans you hang from it are optional, so it really is no longer X car.  It is something that is shaped like X car.

YMMV.

That is actually spot on: The rule book for the class dictates that the vehicle must look like the car it is pretending to be. Engine is roughly the same place, wheel base within XX% and so on. A tube frame covered with a glass fiber skin is all OK, as long as it looks pretty close.

The old Ship of Theseus conundrum.

I think Pinchvalve nailed it though. When you reach the point of badge engineering it's no longer the same car. That Car of Tomorrow chassis really only has badges in common with a Camry. Even those are just stickers, so technically they're not even badges. Toyota is literally just pointing at a random car and calling it a Camry.

The Minis are a bit more of a grey area since it's obvious what they were derived from.

My rule of thumb is that it's the same car/ship/airplane if you can say "It started out life as X. Then things got out of hand."

I’d say original frame/body on original style suspension. My tbird is on the original frame (shortened) and has the original body (chopped and shortened) on modified stock suspension. Still a tbird despite heavy mods and a Chevy engine. 

A miata on Koni’s with flares/fenders and 295 tires and a V8 is still a Miata to me. 

A Toyota with an I6 and a turbo is still a BMW. 

More than that and it becomes something else. 

IMO, it's basically this - body, chassis, engine: Keep 2 of 3.

Tubeframe chassis but with an original steel Mustang body over it, with a Ford 351 powering it? It's a Mustang.

Mustang with original unibody chassis underneath, but a 2JZ (no E36 M3!) motor in it? Still a Mustang.

Mustang chassis and engine, with custom fiberglass widebody and carbon fiber bits? Mustang.

Custom tubeframe with carbon fiber body and Mustang engine: not truly a Mustang.

Anything more granular than that is best left to the philosphers of the world.

(Then again, I was getting mad at myself for thinking about putting aftermarket cylinder heads on my 5.0 engine...but the Ford Motorsport ones are so expensive  )