[Bmcu] Mystery Sprite - any one missing one ?

[Steve Masefield]

Further to looking into this Sprite...

I went digging for the ‘hidden’ numbers ..

The door posts revealed screws holes on both sides where a plate had been ... but no numbers
Floor cross member on right  is rusted – I couldn’t see anything but will take a closer look.
The right suspension plate – after much crude removal – reveal HAN XXXXX where someone had carefully and methodically obliterated the numbers ...
But the final place – under the electrical cables tucked under the right fender/wing revealed as clean as day “57700” – is that a body number or part of the VIN ? 

So to the cognoscenti out there,  would the original VIN have been HAN   57700 ?

Closer examination of the plate welded to left chassis leg directly under the carbs shows it was very poor job, on thick plate and clearly not factory, taken from something but I doubt a Sprite. 

The Engine is an MGB 1.8 (18 is stamped on the rear of the casting, and it appears an MGB gear box was used to – hence the expanded tunnel metal work. The engine mountings up front are sitting on crude but effective  I beams about 4” deep - to get the lift required from the Sprite mount to MGB mount ...(Compression was reasonable at 150,132,132 138) 

So anyone missing a Sprite Mk II ? – probably red to begin with, then yellow and now metallic blue...
Steve
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