Australian Car Number

[JonE]

tut, tut Tony. Body number not on the Survivors Register... :-)
Hoorah - that's another one!!

Interesting, but doesn't fit the Fabric Saloon range whatsoever. Or the equivalent Tourer one. (Sigh)

[Tony Press]

Jon,

For Australian bodied cars we have never advised the 'body' number because they are so random as to be of little or no interest.

[JonE]

Hmmm.... you are not going to believe this. I transposed the wrong figure.
Your body number is acceptably close to the AD body range! (i.e. 1000 numerals in advance of the next chassis number down on the AD Register list... but 54,000 rather than 53,000, which I'd say is is statistically significant?)

Could you post a pic of the clear stamp so we can compare to the earlier one on the thread, Tony?

---

Jon,

For Australian bodied cars we have never advised the 'body' number because they are so random as to be of little or no interest.

I think its thus a circular argument. Unless you have data posted, you can't work out what the potential patterns are? Especially now we are starting to be able to see the 'signature' of the different stamps... and understand how the cars or chassis were shipped.

I can see that it possibly makes the cars look unoriginal though... could you perhaps advise them privately so we can work on them?

[Tony Press]

Not sure it helps-

Mine 

A8 6175 26th April 1929
Chassis 83009
Body? (tunnel) number 54668


Steve's-

A9 309  July 1929
Chassis 87642
Body? (tunnel) number 49701

[Mark McKibbin]

I made a list of all the CHA1 numbers that I could find in the Chassis Register together with their Chassis numbers:
15013  CHA1-847
19834  CHA1-830
27751  CHA1-1758
29386  CHA1-2491
34326  CHA1-2970
44403  CHA1-4189
51146  CHA1-4729
45568  CHA1-4832
48088  CHA1-5936
49918  CHA1-6664
            CHA1-6692
            CHA1-8191
53723  CHA1-8531
55342  CHA1-9273

Mark, it seems odd that your car doesn't seem to fit into this list in the 'right' place. Chassis no.48088 is also an Australian Chummy.

David

David you are right, my car is out of order but it may have been made up from several cars. I suppose the question is do all Australian cars around this time have a CHA1 prefix for the car number or something like A5

[JonE]

Mark - There are very few CHA1 declarations on the Register, as David has shown.
It would be good for someone to go through the early Gaydon ledger and see if A8, the first extant, has any whatsoever, or whether they just died out of use for some reason.
It would also be good for someone to follow up the extant cars i.e. two Mulliners and find out a bit more of their history. Mulliner owners may be easily contactable through the Registrar... they could be export cars. Or not.

[Mark McKibbin]

I have now found the body number on the transmission tunnel, it sort of lines up with the chassis number.

Chassis Number 51146
Body Number 48893
Car Number CHA1-4729

[JonE]

Can we have a photo, Mark? or send it via email if you dont want public?

Interesting that yes, its in the series, but "advanced" in its range.
(i.e. the body numbers declared either side are 41xxx and 46xxx ish)
Isn't that what we found earlier up the thread, with hypothesis to suit?

Its difficult to get your head around why a lag can occur which means the numbers are more similar, and conversely that the lack of lag in the chassis being parcelled off (for a CHA-1 car number) means the body number is high/recent...

[Mike Costigan]

I think it's quite reasonable that the body numbers don't fit a logical sequence. First of all, the bodies probably got stock-piled at Longbridge so bodies and chassis matched together on the sales ledger didn't necessarily have a directly matched production link; and then when they got shipped to Australia, again there is further scope for bodies and chassis to become mismatched.

[Tony Press]

So we have Australian cars: 

Car No. A9 309,  July 1929
Chassis 87642
Body number 49701

Car No. A8 6175, April 1929
Chassis 83009
Body number 54668

Car No. CHA1-4729, late 1927
Chassis 51146
Body Number 48893

Not seeing any Body Number pattern.

As for the CHA1 numbers, the largest noted is CHA1-9273- does this indicate there were some 10,000 cars with this Car Number designation? 

Seems odd that Wyatt or the other Austin 7 books don't seem to mention this series- or am I missing something.