Hi again Keith
It's anorak time now, but you did ask for the then and now perspective...
Digging around, I'm pretty sure you saw the car at Brands in 1983. If so, then I was there too... It certainly raced #2 that year.
Originally, in 1964, it had an attractive one piece front end, similar to the Shelby Daytona Coupes. I have photos somewhere.
In its first major body rebuild, before you saw the car, the front end was replaced by a (IMHO butt ugly) two piece, with the bonnet now hinging just below the headlights (see the shut line in your photo) and different grille apertures.
It was restored again in the late 1980s in a darker red, with painted white wheels (mmm ... nice...). That's when the roof lights and other bits were removed. In this restoration it still retained the two piece front end.
It's since been nicely restored again although no-one's bitten the bullet to rebuild the front end to its original spec. It is however in fantastic condition.
Cheers and thanks for posting your pictures.
Rob
PS If you have any pictures of the same race meeting with a blue Datsun 260Z in the background then that's probably my car /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif.