At 03:38 PM 9/7/04 -0400, you wrote:
>I am reminded of a piece on the Car Talk radio show a while ago. Someone
>wrote in about his correspondence with Volvo. He said that he had replaced
>most of the parts on his car, and wanted Volvo to pay for replacing the few
>remaining parts in an effort to answer the epistemological question of
>whether it would still be the same car.
>
>Volvo thanked him for his interest in expanding the bounds of human
>knowledge, but politely declined to participate in the experiment.
>
>Marcus Helman
>Huntington Woods, MI
This reminds me of a fellow who was vintage sports car racing in a quite rare and ridiculously valuable Ferrari. He was asked why he was willing to drive such a rare machine so close to, and sometimes past, it's limits. His answer was that as long as the manufacturers plate with the serial number survived, he could afford to have it "restored" after any crash. Bit of a different attitude towards "originality" than has been expressed here.
Mark Stonich;
BikeSmith Design & Fabrication LLC
http://bikesmithdesign.com