Wuh-oh—looks as if the error is mine. I misremembered the nature and extent of Doc's involvement with that engine (see here) when I was having an offhand conversation (started with "oh, lookit there, the XNR is up for auction!") with Allpar's owner. Did not mean for those remarks to be published as they were (and neither did the Allpar site owner; one of his staffers grabbed it and chucked it up on the site).
Doc explains his involvement here. So basically RM is right that Doc didn't build the engine. But they do seem extremely defensive about it, don't they! I believe RM's disproportionately bristly response is probably due to their wanting to "control the message" regarding the engine in the car (because $$$$$), and that's not something that can be readily determined because of the nature of a concept car: the badging, promotional material, and hype often say one thing while the actuality is something else altogether. This is just plain common sense: by all means dress up the engine bay to whatever degree necessary in accord with how much of the engine bay will be on display, but actually build the engine in accord with how the vehicle is going to be actually used -- which for most concept cars is "not much at all", just very slowly across a stage or on and off a show field or maybe in a demonstration lap or two around a track.
In a credibility contest between Doc ("mild build for putt-putting around the show grounds") and the owner trying to impress Jay Leno or RM trying to assure top $$$$ for the car ("exact correct genuine actual real perfect restoration to 1960 NASCAR specs! Over 250 million billion horsepowers! More than 9,000 RPM! It'll boil the road in first gear!!!!11!!1!!"), Doc wins with all six connecting rods tied behind his back.
Sigh. Off to request some cleanup on aisle six.
