Identification question

[Ruairidh Dunford]

The one shown In Purves is a three speed car - the lines down the back of the body are not definitive but the absence of rear tank may be!

Very interesting.

[Hedd_Jones]

Yes, there are loads of 4 seat tourers of the same style in Clives albums with the vertical body seams, but with the rear tank.

[Mike Costigan]

Thanks for the photos, Hedd. LG 9235 is a very early AH model (no 51), just a few hundred cars before the four-speed box was introduced, and UF 9058 is a thousand cars after the rear tank and four-speed box was standardised across the range! So I assume long-chassis 3-speed cars are in fact very rare, and you've managed to find at least two of them!

[PedigreeChummy]

Well, good afternoon, gents.

I am back after a few weeks research, with a follow up to this issue.

The seller of the car (no impropriety suggested on his behalf, by the way), has got back to me with the actual numbers from the various bits of metal, having been away for a spell. So here goes....

Chassis number is: 146841
Engine number is: 163055
Body number is: AK29 (from tranny tunnel)
(the two former numbers being as shown on the logbook)

So... to me that means an early AH Tourer according to the body and the engine, but on an earlier 1932 longer chassis. Perhaps there was one lying about in the stack unused that they thought we'd better get cracking with... I kind of like that story. Maybe it was bottom of the heap, then got a load of later chassis dumped on it on a Friday afternoon by some fellas keen to get down the boozer, and then only surfaced 6 months later. Who knows....?

Doesn't explain the registration date of Feb 1932 on the logbook, though... maybe some clerical error over the years.

Anyway, I'm sufficiently confident that it'll pass muster with the French given the sketchiness of records back then, so on y va with the purchase.... soon to be bimbling along the Pyrennean roads.... nothing too steep, however!

[bob46320]

Log book is the date of first registration, not date of manufacture ??

[JonE]

gosh. that really does look like a 'K'. Would be good to see a wider angle shot of that transmission tunnel...

[Austin Carr]

gosh. that really does look like a 'K'. Would be good to see a wider angle shot of that transmission tunnel...

Or is it a lower case "h" ?