Reminds me of an article I read about attempts to restore a Ferrari that had crashed and burned. It had been totally destroyed, the only thing salvageable was the serial number plate.

The debate was, of course, whether this project was a restoration or a replication. I don't think there's a difference.

A few years ago I visited a hangar in Everett where some enthusiasts had borrowed an Me262 from a museum in order to take it apart and produce mechanical drawings of everything. Then they built flying replicas from the ground up and sold them. Some changes were made for safety and practicality reasons.

So were they real Me262s or not? I'd say they were real. I wished I could have bought one.