I will very gingerly put my head above the parapet, what was the point of manufacturing complete UFMs if we end up with a machine that cannot be used on British roads, and is presumedly only of any use for museum display purposes, could not the RFM number be used to determine the age of the machine and the UFM just stamped with the type designation but not a number that matches the RFM. With the Vincent factory closing its doors 63 years ago, here is a hypothetical question, if there was a stash of UFMs left over from those bygone days, not such a daft thought as there were some factory original parts for sale at this years annual rally, would those UFMs qualify for the DVLA 25 year rule even though they were unstamped, and then if they were stamped what numbers could be used. This is all very relevant to me as I had a pretty serious crash about 10 years ago and my original headstock casting was wrecked with the bearing housings ovaled and cracked, I managed to purchase a replacement UFM complete from Ron Kemp, I decided to retain the factory stampings on the replacement but had a small aluminium plate stamped up with my existing numbers and just araldited the little plate over the existing number, no filing or restamping took place.
It might be possible to reinstate my original UFM at some point if the bearing housings can be repaired a little and then machined to accept taper roller bearings, something for me to consider.
I can of course see there could be problem with indiscriminately stamping up new UFMs with existing numbers, no one wants a situation whereby there is more than one machine displaying the same frame numbers, but in a case like mine I would have been more than happy to hand my damaged headlug casting into the Spares Club in exchange for a replacement casting stamped up with the correct number, perhaps with an additional feature to distinguish from an original part if that is deemed important, no one is trying hoodwink anyone here, we are not trying to make £20K Comets into £658K Black Lightnings, we are just trying to keep our beloved steeds on the roads where they should be, not in museums.