Hello...I wondered when this was going to raise its head....
Firstly , just to get something straight from the offset ...the new Miglia is nothing to do with me. I have no involvement with it at all , no influence , no financial backing , no work on the project , nothing. I haven't even seen the finished buck as its shown here ... I rarely visit my old workshop nowadays as I am kept busy in my own little world.
I can see the argument from both sides.
If I was Andy , having just bought a going concern , concept , patterns , jigs etc. and planning to raise the products profile this year with exciting new ideas etc..I would also be pretty bloody miffed. I spent my time as custodian of the Sammio concept worrying that someone would do just this to me...I have had it happen to me before after a big investment of time and money into a previous project and it wasn't very nice...
I was uncomfortable about the Tribute A352 when it was born as I felt that was 'a bit close' to my original concept , there is also a guy in Reading , Oliver , who has created an AC Ace body to go on a Vitesse chassis , a guy who has owned 2 Sammio's , so obvious where his inspiration came from as well...
The problem is , I think , that as in the original glory days of the Special bodied chassis , the 50's and 60's , imitators and look a likes will spring up all over the place if enterprising people see potential in a product....I looked back at that time period , took my knowledge of Triumph chassis fitting old Ford Populars and created a modern day solution to building those cars of old...so the Sammio wasn't a new idea , it was a twist on an old idea...
Of course , you can patent , copyright etc to avoid this , but its expensive and difficult to police as I believe you only need to change something like 10% of a design to not be breaching that....there is an argument that the concept can be a breach if its deemed to be similar , but I dont know how that works....
As far as the Miglia is concerned , Mike is being a bit naughty , I think he knows he was never going to be releasing this without some flack , but in his defence , he has changed a lot of the body....it still clearly displays its origins ( as did the original Sammio versus Nickri comparible ) , it also features the definitive 50's Special features , ie. headrest , fish mouth grille , hipped rear wings etc. that many many cars of that era wore....but he has completely changed the bonnet area , one piece body , seperate bonnet , re-contoured cowl into dash area , re-shaped doors , re-shaped rear wings and rear valance , much longer nose and re-shaped grille opening etc.
So basically , I see Andy's stand on this , If I was him I would be unhappy too.....but I can see how Mike feels that he has introduced a clearly influenced by , but new body option to the market place...
Not wanting to get caught up in a battle of words , but I would be interested to hear Andy's stand on his idea to re-skin a Spitfire with a Ribble body leaving the cut bodyshell largely in place ? I only ask because this concept was kind of concieved by Tribute with their A352 , who borrowed the idea from Banham with his 550/skoda builds....Not a flippant or antagonistic comment , just wondering where the line is drawn on 'borrowed concept'...
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