Friends
A few days ago I undertook to research why some commission numbers
appear to be out of sync with what many feel are established numerical
parameters. Unfortunately, the answer (if there is one) is muddier
than ever.
I had a long talk today with my colleague in the BMIHT archive who
researches all the data for your Heritage Certificates. As already
offered to the list in previous posts, there are known difficulties in
actually reading what are now quite old microfilms, together with all
the garbage that contaminated the originals before microfilming.
That's an operational problem.
We then move to the quality of data submitted by current owners about
their cars - and this is a veritable minefield in terms of what the
owners thinks is written on the commission plate or other identity
tags, vis a vis the data recorded on vehicle paperwork and titles.
This is frequently compounded because of bad or inaccurate
handwriting - and often more than once as the vehicle changed hands,
allied to *keying* errors when such material was computerised. That's
a further operational problem submitted by the customer in good faith.
It still has to be unravelled.
We then come to commission / engine / body / VIN numbers that
seemingly exist but which in reality don't exist as completed vehicles
because no build record is on microfilm. There is very little chance
that build record cards in their original forms were ever lost and my
archivist colleague has confirmed beyond any shadow of doubt that the
microfilms in his control are absollutely complete. A build record
matches a sales invoice and in the many years he has been dealing with
these queries, he admits he has received data from owners about cars
that *never existed* because the numerical sequencing is so far
removed from reality that no car was ever made in that number range.
His view is that the vehicle is almost certainly a very convincing
'ringer' that is by no means what it appears to be. The build records
we have match exactly with a number of other records from within the
factory that also 'size' the alpha/numeric spans and this means (as
far as BMIHT is concerned) that cars outside those numeric spans were
never originally built in those guises. I can personally testify to
this as nearly two years ago, I came across a 2500S Estate car with a
commission number that was 7000 AFTER production finished, there was
no body number tag and the engine had no number either. It was only by
questioning the deceased owners family that I discovered the owner had
previously been a Triumph dealer and this car had been built in his
service department out of spare parts and other salvaged bits. A
'later' commission number was applied in the full knowledge it was not
a genuine car and this had to be done to obtain a vehicle licence.
I think this is a question tat will continue to vex those people who
own cars with oddball numbers but BMIHT has all the records from
Standard Triumph. The bottom line from Gaydon's view is that if the
number doesn't fit the numerical span, it isn't a genuine car. From
this, we should deduce that at some stage in the vehicle's life
"something has happened to it" and there's no way of checking what,
how or why - but it certainly didn't happen under factory control.
Jonmac
Jonmac
1950 Ferguson TED20 152318
1970 Triumph 2.5PI MG4305DL(O)
1974 Triumph 2000 ML2294DLO
IN THE SHADOW OF MY FATHER
http://www.toolbox.ndirect.co.uk/triumphbook
THE CROCUS AND A CORNFLOWER http://www.toolbox.ndirect.co.uk/crocus
The SLOW progress with 'Canley Girl':
http://www.toolbox.ndirect.co.uk/
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