Australian Car Number

[JonE]

Tony, that makes complete sense and wants recording with the Association information on body numbers until any other information emerges to add to it. Mike's observation about the overstamping of the tags with the body number also seems eminently sensible.

It would be good to get your and others thoughts on the practical distinction between the CHA and standard chassis number vehicles i.e. what physically was exported in each case. Or is the CHA and export a red herring?

[Mike Costigan]

Yes, I agree with Ian and Tony ... basically! Each major component was given an individual number: engine, chassis and body. On final assembly in the Longbridge factory the completed car was then given a further number, the Car Number, which in modern parlance is the car's VIN number. This is the official identity of the completed car, and this is the number recorded in the factory ledgers, and is the one that would have been used in any communications with the factory. As Ian says, these ran in alpha-numeric sequence, A4, A5, A6 etc. Unfortunately the UK registration document had the words 'Chassis Number' printed to record the identity, so most registering authority did just that, and recorded the chassis number rather than the (VIN) car number, so over the years we now identify a car by its chassis number rather than, correctly, by its car number.

However, I think Steve's numbers would indicate that Tony is mistaken, and Australian cars did carry a body number on the scuttle/floorpan assembly. The D/AD body sequence commenced with A2-7074, chassis 17074. This means that Steve's car has a chassis number approximately 70,000 numbers on. If we assume approximately 60% of these were chummys, the remained being alloy saloons, fabric saloons and coachbuilt chassis, that would make Steve's car around the 42,000th chummy, so the 49101 stamping is in all probability the Longbridge-stamped body number (in other words by early 1929 chummy production had been nearer 70% of total production). That would still indicate that the 1624 number is an Australian stamping, presumably by whichever builder, Holden, Propert etc, indicating the number built by that company.

This would also suggest that, if scuttle/floorpan components were stamped with the (AD) body number, then the Startin vans which were supplied from Longbridge in similar form would also be stamped in the same sequence, and therefor should be identified by an AD number rather than a VD number.

[JonE]

So, a heads up for going and checking your original chummy and getting some body numbers onto the register. There may be enough on there already to test this theory... will have a look later.

But it still doesn't get around the CHA1 versus standard car numbers, as per Steve's? It may be that CHA1 just died out naturally for some reason, from those recorded in David's post.. or not.

[Mike Costigan]

Maybe the CHA1 sequence denotes the 'Car Number' for those chassis supplied without scuttle/floorpan assemblies which didn't go down the Longbridge production line and thus didn't acquire a conventional Car Number? ie Mulliners, Gordon Englands, Swallows, etc.

[JonE]

Ok, so what is a plausible interpretation for Mark's car that this thread started... and the other Australian CHA1 chummy?
A cheaper route for transportation and purchase for some of the Australian bodied cars, even less built up? Presumably we don't have enough raw data to test, Tony and Bill?

[Mike Costigan]

Supplied as a bare chassis rather than chassis with scuttle/floorpan? Presumably the Australian importer could order a less complete assembly if he had a coachbulder/customer that was prepared to put more local content into the completion.

[JonE]

OK, well sorting on just "AD tourer", the body number range is 24615 up to just over 58000 and thus Steve's car sits correctly in range, although it is later in chassis series than it might otherwise appear. i.e. it is sitting in the 55,000s.

I'm just trying to work out what that means if it were an export chassis and bits rather than others which will be home market cars.

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The C vehicles respect body range "approximately following chassis number" from 5,000ish up to 14,000ish. If we had more body numbers, they would approximately fit the range linking up to the AD vehicles.

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The AD Vans yield nothing of substance.

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If one sorts the AE name derivatives and compares against the last of the AD range, then the majority of the (few) body numbers noted DIRECTLY CONTINUE from the AD range, including one noted as a Holden! i.e. into the low 60,000s.

Could someone with an AE confirm they have no prefix AE stamp on the transmission tunnel. I know this has been discussed somewhere but I can't remember when the stamped prefix model letters start coming in.

[Hedd_Jones]

mine hasn't

[Mike Costigan]

OK, well sorting on just "AD tourer", the body number range is 24615 up to just over 58000 and thus Steve's car sits correctly in range, although it is later in chassis series than it might otherwise appear. i.e. it is sitting in the 55,000s...

Maybe because the scuttle/floorpan assembly could be completed before finished bodies, and if the number was stamped when the floorpan was first fabricated, then it's possible the sub-assembly went out of the factory before the complete body went down the assembly line?

[Tony Press]

My quite original (third owner) 1929 Holden built fabric Saloon , with the fabric body built on a Longbridge exported factory built Chummy chassis/floorpan has the following numbers-

Engine M 83747  (stamped on the crankcase and recorded on the surviving ledger records at Gaydon )

Chassis  83609 (chassis not stamped - number from the surviving Longbridge ledger records at Gaydon)

Car Number A8 6175 ( 'etched' on the car original ID plate and recorded on the ledger with a build date 26th April 1929)

Tunnel stamped with number 54688 in large numbers deeply stamped.

Holden Job No 8142 on alloy plate under back seat.