[TR] build date of TR3A

[Steve Ball]

Fred,

The Triumph folks had a fix for that.  They just changed the declared model
year of the car to match the year in which it was first sold, so it was always
a "new" car no matter how old it was.  My TR3A, TS68164, was built in February
1960, but was registered in California as a '62 because that's when it was
first sold, after apparently sitting around the docks in L.A. for 2 years.
The dealer (or some other factory rep) simply added a little plate to the
firewall, officially declaring the model year of the car.  Mine suddenly
became a 1962 TR3A even though it was nearly 2 years old...what a miracle!
The crummy little sign (and I do mean crummy)  reads: "STC 62", presumably for
Standard Triumph Corp, 1962.  The California registration shows the VIN number
as: STC62TS68164L.  The little plate was screwed onto the firewall, so if it
didn't sell in '62 they could easily replace it with "STC 63" and so forth.  I
think they got away with it because the cars all looked pretty much the same,
and the buying public was clueless.

So...let me see if I have this right.  Using the same "Triumph Logic", I
should be able to attach a little plate to my forehead and declare a new
birthday for myself?  Maybe I can lose 10 years?  How cool is that?


Steve


=================
Message: 9
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:13:18 -0400
From: "FRED E THOMAS" <frede.thomas2 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [TR] build date of TR3A
To: "David Ljung Madison" <team.net at daveola.com>,
<triumphs at autox.team.net>
Message-ID: <00fc01c81650$691ea570$ba1e7247 at fred8kwiskhcfu>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
reply-type=original

Every car built comes with a "Certificate of Origin" from the factory, no
matter how long it may sit in a storage yard or a dealers showroom, when
said car is finally sold it must be titled according to the "CO" date and
not the year it is sold in. in plain words the "CO" is the cars "birth
certificate" for it's entire life span (and beyond sometimes)  "FT" (over 40
years in the new/used car business)