The New Gold Standard

For decades now, one of the most sought-after and desirable accessories for any historic racecar has been the possession of FIA papers. As an official validation of both conformation and prov­enance, the hallowed FIA papers have been an essential for anyone wanting to race a car in Europe and can, in most cases, add significant amounts onto the value of any given car.

However, as anyone with experience with these things can attest, variations in standards between issuing countries have sometimes left a wide gap between one set of FIA papers and another. While papers emanating from the UK have been some of the most thoroughly vetted (presumably due to the country’s depth of experts and knowledge), in other countries it has sometimes only been necessary to pay the appropriate “fee” to attain certification.