body numbers
Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2000 8:30 pm
First I wish to thank Bill, Mark, & Robin for the infor they provided, many thanks again. I first started to work on this some years ago, and I had most of it down, but I seem to have misplaced some of my notes. Mike Sherrell layed most of it out and I agree that the first part of the body number is the body serial number. I would like to start by using Mikes number as an example, as most of us has his book, page 78. Mikes car is (or the one he writes about) 9491, made in August of l949. The body number is 9240 A 39102. Okay the 9240 is the serial number. I do not know what the "A" stands for, maybe it means Abingdon, who knows?, anyway my idea is that the 39 stands for the number of months since they went into production on the bodies. We do not know when they started building the bodies, we can only guess that it was in August or September l945, this would mean that the body for Mikes car was made in or around December 1948, providing that strikes, shut downs, etc did not change the counting. My TC 5010, was made in March 1948, it has a body number of A29963, or that the body was made in January 1948. I have found that the TD's continued with the same numbers as the TC's. My TD (heaven forbid) was made in l952, its body number is 85571, or was made some where around October l952, again if they did not count shut downs etc. What I find interesting is Bill's number, which I do not have a number for this early of a car, A ll64, this would mean it was made in the first month of production, his is the 50th car produced (November l945), even more intesting is Marks number A l432, car 0617, this would mean that almost four hundred bodies were producted in one month. Of course I have heard that Abingdon was one of the first to go back into production, maybe they had no other orders except from MG and they really cranked them out. Now to the next number, this would be the third from the right, in Mikes case 1 (39102) . Previously I determined this might be the week of the month. I am not sure how I came up with this, but I still think this is the case. I have collect a few number over the years, most of them are from TD's , I do know that 1, 5, & 6 are a very common number for the third number. I have not found a 3, or 8, or 0 yet. I did find a TD without anything in this place, except for a dash (-). The next two numbers seem to be very random. The second number from the right, I have not found a 5 or 9, the first number from the right I have not found a 8, 9, or 0. They seem to stop at seven. I have tried working it with time, with no luck. I do not think it has anything to do with a job number. I still think it has to do with a line number, or a shift number, as there are to many repeats of the same numbers. As to some other possibilities, the interior was done at Abingdon, so it can not be this. There was not enought different paint colors to cover the range of number, this is out, besides there would be very many more repeats that what I have found. The other way to look at is to take our cars. They were obsessed with code dates on the car, the generator, the starter have numbers. The coil, voltage regulator, I believe the distributor, I know the shock absorbers, I think, the wire wheels, I know the tires use to have code dates also, probably numbers can be found on gages, they were everwhere, it would seem me that the body would also have a code date. Now this is only my idea, I do not want to bore anyone, if anyone can add anything I am all ears, I am looking for suggestion, where are the code breakers, I am looking for new ideas, with more numbers maybe the light bulb will click on. and it will all become clear. Regards Dean