• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Question on 61 AH Sprite body number tags.

Share this page

J

John_Progess

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
I am restoring Sprite number HAN6L6788 and it has a number tag screwed to both the A and B pillars below the top hinge and also a number 4717 stamped in the engine bay above the blanking plate for right hand drive master cylinder. Does anyone know what these numbers mean? Where is the best place to find info about the side curtain cars? I have purchased two books, Restoring Sprites and Midgets and the Workshop Manual, and they hardly mention the side curtain cars. This car was completely disassembled and some things are not obvious. Information like what each hole in the firewall is for and how this thing is put together. I have restored 8 LBC's so I am not a total stranger to these things. Thanks for your help and have a good day!

John
 
The best book you could buy is:

Original Sprite and Midget: The Restorers Guide by Terry Horler

I see it's out of stock on Amazon, but it was just recently reprinted so you should be able to find a copy somewhere for cover price.
 
Also, the tags on the pillars and the stamped number you found are basically a variation on the body number.

I'll quote Horler page 42:

"...(these numbers) were most likely used for internal factory purposes between the various manufacturing and assembly locations."
 
On MKII Sprites, the LH door pillar is a number that was tracked and will be on the BMIHT certificate. On MKI (Bugeye), it will be the RH door plate, beginning "BAE" I think they kept the same prefix on MKII's but I'm not positive. That number can therefore be used to trace the original chassis number, should the plate be missing. The chassis plate on these early Sprights is found on the diagonal rail, underneath the air cleaners/carbs. It face upwards. The opposite door tag is an internal number that was not recorded; probably used for internal tracking by Pressed Steel, who made the bodies. The number above the blanking plate on the footwell is also not a recorded number, nor is it the chassis number.

If all the plates are original to the car, they will be within a few hundred digits, up to maybe 1000, but typically fairly close in sequence to the chassis number, and that is something that also includes the engine number as well.
 
Interesting comparison - I have a '62 AN6 with the original drivetrain (etc) as confirmed by BMIHT. My body number is +/- 5000 digits earlier than the chassis number and the chassis number is +/- 10,000 digits earlier than the engine number.
 
AN6-TX said:
Interesting comparison - I have a '62 AN6 with the original drivetrain (etc) as confirmed by BMIHT. My body number is +/- 5000 digits earlier than the chassis number and the chassis number is +/- 10,000 digits earlier than the engine number.
Click to expand...

That's hard to believe... especially 10,000; even 1000 apart is unusual. I'd like to see the numbers.
 
My vin is HAN6L6788, the left side door plate is ABL005256 (stamped), the right side door plate is BAL5456 (embossed). Good interesting information about our little cars! Have a good day!

John
 
Back
Top