[TR] Narrowing in on a lost commission number

[nwolf at u.washington.edu]

Thanks, Jonmac!
   I have written to BMIHT to see if there is any hope of ferreting out the build record using the body-in-white number.
   In the meantime, I received a couple more data points for the TR4 body-in-white numbers (thanks to Steven Newell and Jeff Kimbrell):

CT 1798 L	ZS 17010
CT 5521 LO	ZS 16435
CT 15093 L	ZS 25136
CT 22326 L	ZS 44767
CT 25830 L	ZS 35743

   If I squint, I can imagine a correlation between commission number and body number, but it's not strong.  I guess this means that some bodies sat around for quite a while before being turned into cars... which may help explain the observed variation in the timing of certain body change points with respect to commission numbers.
   The surprising thing is that my number (ZS 010966) is the lowest - lower than some seriously early cars.  So, I'm throwing down the gauntlet:  Can anyone out there beat 10966?  :)
   (also, am I the only one with a leading zero?)

   Thanks again
-Nick Wolf
'62 TR4... or is it '61?


On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 19:20:05 -0000 standardtriumph at btinternet.com wrote:
> Nick Wolf wrote:
> 
> >   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.
> 
> >   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