I have also heard it was common practice to rebody them when used for motorsports. Often when they got smashed up and the body was beyond repair a donor shell was found and all parts including tags moved onto the donor shell.

It is always going to be cause for debate at what stage does it becomes a replica. Personally I would rather a rust free pristine shell with all cooper s parts put on it than a rusty beat up shell that had a limited life left in it.

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1965 Riley Elf
1974 Ex Army Moke
1997 Rover Cooper
2002 JCW Cooper
2003 JCW Cooper S

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's certainly interesting to hear the range of views on this. Clearly a "real" Cooper is worth more to the market, even if it is mechanically identical to a well put together replica. And from the examples I've seen so far, some of the replicas have been sorted more nicely than some of the real ones...

a piece of string is exactly twice the distance from the centre to one end.

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It's easy once you know how.