Gentlemen,
This is a difficult matter.
First, in my opinion, the purpose of this forum is to discuss Historic Aircrafts preferably in a polite manner, which, I regret is not always the case.
We all know that to keep an aircraft flying, parts are frequently rebuilt or renewed (IRAN).
If a particular subtype of engine is not readily available, one should select the closest available subtype, f.i. Griffon from Shackleton. It happens that I read again the booklet issued years ago by The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (Bill Taylor-Midland Publishing Limited 1995) and learned that one Sea Balliol donated his Merlin to an unserviceable aircraft. Was it the correct subtype, I don’t know and for me it doesn’t matter.
When the original engine is replaced by an American or Russian engine, the airframe remains historic. I personnally prefer when the cowling is not too altered.
A few days ago some of us called Reno racers (B…ed).Nevertheless the airframe remains historic.
Now, for the newbuilt, we may consider that the American built Me-262 and the new metal FW 190 are continuation of the original types but they are not historic.If we, or rightly the moderators, decide to discuss them in this forum which would be my choice, one could use a suffix (C for continuation instead of R for replica?) to avoid misunderstandings in the next 30 years .
The same remark applies to look alike aircraft (Marcel Jurka full scale wooden FW 190) which in my opinion belong to General Aviation.
To conclude, those wooden or fiberglass aircrafts will become historic in the next 25-30 years.
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