John,
WHAT!!!!!! You mean to tell me that my Mk1 Spit didn't come from
Coventry with a 1500 engine????
Joe Curry
jonmac wrote:
>
> Hi, Guys
> At the risk of being a pain in the proverbial, I thought I'd relay this
> situation 'unofficially' to the lists for those of you yet to apply for
> Heritage Certificates.
> This week, I've been manning the phones in the Archive section owing to
> staff absences and one thing has become very clear.
> Some people, fortunately not many - when applying for a Certificate,
> provide just a chassis number. Sure, this is the detail we
> need to start a trace - but sometimes it appears we're only getting part of
> a number. In this case, I'm referring to the suffix letters
> on Triumph chassis plates. Frankly, it's causing problems and occasionally,
> it precipitates an irate phone call or a stuffy letter from the
> vehicle owner.
> How does this come about?
> Some people applying for Certs have a car that was a rebuild by a previous
> owner which owner then decided to undertake some mods of his/her own - like
> not refitting an overdrive or changing the steering position. All we can
> do, is to provide you with the data from production records when the car
> was new and we are particularly careful how this info is recorded on the
> Cert we issue.
> What is rather distressing is that we receive letters and calls from people
> challenging the authenticity of the info we provide because someone has
> effected a change in the vehicle spec (transmission, steering position,
> body or trim colour) at a later date. Naturally, we have no knowledge of
> this and we are just as unable as the current owner to explain why or when
> this happened.
> All I would say is that when you submit us your details, nothing is too
> unimportant to help us to help you in terms of the info you can provide. I
> know that chassis, engine and body numbers are key to research but its not
> our fault if someone switches bodies and chassis, paints everything a
> different colour and then 'passes the car off' as a wholly rebuilt original
> example.
> In summary, if you do receive a certificate that doesn't tally with your
> car, its a pretty safe bet that at some stage in the past (after said
> vehicle left Coventry or Abingdon) that someone has interfered with it. It
> seems a lot of people don't appreciate this.
> Only today, I had to deal with a woman who couldn't understand why we
> didn't know what had happened to her now fully restored Healey 3000 which
> she thought was first made and first licenced in 1965. In fact it was
> originally made in 1961 (according to the chassis number) the gearbox came
> from something else and the axle with rear disc brakes was obviously a
> hybrid. Of course, in her view she was right, BMIHT was wrong and what she
> wanted to know was WHY we couldn't sort it all out for her.
> John Macartney
--
"If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort."
-- Dave Weinbaum in National Enquirer
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