[TR] Narrowing in on a lost commission number

John Macartney standardtriumph at btinternet.com
Fri Mar 7 12:20:05 MST 2008


Nick Wolf wrote:

>   Why the smile after "rustproofing"?  Did I miss something funny?  ;)

Nick, what's the worst that can happen to your Triumph body? And the *proofing* against it? I dug 
out lots of it on my own car some years back

>   Seriously though, that is a great explanation of why the body-in-white numbers exist.  Now, can 
> you tell us anything about what they mean?  Were they sequential, or do they carry a date code, 
> or... maybe just a string of random digits?

No, they were sequential but, like the commission number sequencing, the cars were often not built 
sequentially.

>Do you know the meaning of the "ZS" prefix on the TR4 body-in-white numbers?

No, afraid I don't. I no longer have access to the BMIHT build records to try and puzzle it out.

>   Are there any records of these numbers?  (Piggott says no)

Unfortunately, Saint Piggot is not being totally accurate. Every body number was recorded on the 
*production tally* card as a matter of course and procedure. But, as the commission number was the 
governing data in terms of car build and despatch history, the body numbers were never recorded as 
separate records in their own right. Therefore Piggot is partly correct but the records do exist, 
though not in numerical sequence.

Jonmac 


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