sm_jamieson wrote:
Well there a

There's a variation of 3 which is a classic car garage. They're people who
know how to improvise and actually fix stuff. Some backstreet garages are
part number jockeys - they just phone up the wholesaler for a price for the
part, go to autodata for the hours, slap a quote together. If anything
doesn't fit this process (eg the part is out of stock at the wholesaler they
use) they don't want to know.

A classic garage might know they haven't made the part since 1953 but can
drill a couple of holes in a bit of scrap metal to mount a generic one from
their parts bin. Even if I don't have a classic I'd trust that sort of
garage rather more that they know what they're doing.

(OTOH they're probably not the best people to reprogram your ECUs)

Theo