In a message dated 7/15/11 10:20:49 AM, austin.healey@gmail.com writes:
> Hey Gary, I stand to be corrected, but the unification of numbers
> occurred on BN2's.
> BN1's had a body number, a chassis number and an engine number. All
> different. And here in Oz, the closest thing we had to unification was
> a Larke Hoskins number, (Larke Hoskins were the origiginal AH importer/
> distributor), and their 'car' number was on the their plate, and also
> stamped on the chassis.
> Best
> Chris
>
We're both right...This is what I wrote in our book ten years ago, so I'm
still assuming the original research was accurate. However, in what I wrote
earlier today I just remembered the relationship with the engine numbers
incorrectly.
"Two different systems were used to assing chassis numbers to the Hundreds.
Until September 1954, chassis numbers were assinged to the BN1s within the
number series of all Austin Vehicles being manufactured at Longbridge. The
first chassis number assigned to an Austin Healey produced at Longbridge in
May 1953 was 138031 and the last number used in this system was 161885, for a
Bn1 produced in Sept 1954. ...
In September 1954, a new unified chassis/engine numbering system was
adopted at Longbridge, with the cars assigned a chassis number corresponding
to
the engine being installed."
So, we're both right -- There is no single sequence of BN1 Car numbers
because they shared numbers with other activities in the Longbridge factory --
That was my point.
Your point that the numbering system didn't change from overall production
to engine usage until Sept 1954 is also right.
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