Anybody ever receive a BMIHT cert that was wrong?

[jdubois]

I just received the Heritage Certificate for my '65 Spit, and I was surprised to see that it had the wrong engine number. Now, obviously, the first thought is that it wasn't the cert that was wrong but a replacement engine in the car. But I'm pretty sure it's the original engine. The Heritage Cert lists the engine as FC51452E and the car has engine FC51752HE in it currently. First, those numbers are awful close to be a replacement engine (just a 7 switched for a 4, and the H dropped). And second, which is the clincher, I've got the original bill of sale from April of '65 that agrees with the engine that's in the car.

Anyway, I was going to send off an email to the archivist who did my cert and see if maybe he just made a mistake, or possibly whoever took the information down originally in January of '65 wrote it down wrong. But I wondered if anybody else had a similar experience.

 

[Flinkly]

yup. these researchers are human too and the books they work off of aren't as easy to read as you would expect. mine had the simple mistake of a high compression engine instead of a low compression engine. they fixed it free of charge and sent me my new one pretty quick. they did tell me to imediatly destroy the old one, i'm assuming because it is signed and obviously incorrect. i didn't though, as it's a nice copy to carry with my catalogs to make sure i'm ordering parts for the correct engine/commision number.

go ahead and write them and tell them what you noticed. the least they will do is recheck and inform you that they are correct. otherwise i'm sure it was a "translation" error from the books, or a misprint.

 

[tr8todd]

I've seen several come back on TR8 coupes that said there was no record of the car ever being built. I saw a door tag that had the wrong color code. Car was brown, tag said it was green. You will see many of the build dates are way out of sequence with the VIN numbers, and you will see door tags that don't match the windshield tag. My early coupe has ACN8UA on the door, but ACN0008UA on the windshield. There is a rumor out there that a boat load of early coupes were sent back to England, where they were retagged and sent back to the states. Makes you wonder if some of them are counted twice. Must be alot of fun trying to research a car when they can't even tell you how many were made.

 

[Geo Hahn]

Me too.

Mine (TR4) also had an engine number with one digit incorrect (a '3' vs an '8'). I inquired and they sent me a correct certificate right away.

In the case of some of these cars they are working with a microfiche copy of a greasy 3x5 card that was attached to the windscreen as the car moved down the line.

 

[JFS]

I too received incorrect numbers on the certificate for my TR8. I had numbers transposed. They apologized and issued another with the correct numbers.

 

[TR4]

Mine says the car come over on the vessel "Hugaro" and I have never found any information proving the existence of any ship by that name. I even tried spelling it several different ways to no avail.

 

[jdubois]

I just got an email back from the archivist. He misread the build record. Just like you guys said, he apologized for the error, has put a new certificate in the post, and asked me to destroy the old one.

Interestingly, he said the 'E' vs 'HE' suffix was because Triumph at the time wasn't putting the 'H' into the build records, but he added it to the number on the new certificate since any USA car would definitely have been high compression.

 

[Mickey Richaud]

When I received the certificate for the TR3, all the numbers were right, but the interior color was wrong. Original paint color was beige, and that was correct, but the certificate indicated blue leather trim. What was on the car - and it was dry-rotted from age, and pretty obviously factory-applied - was stone interior (vinyl). I've been told that dealers often changed stuff out, but it's hard to believe that they went to that much trouble. If so, I wonder where those blue leather seats went...

 

[YankeeTR]

According to the cert for TS11203LO it was shipped without an engine!?

 

[Russ Austin]

Well let's see, TS/41804-L from the BMHIHT states the build date as 2 January 1958. More likely 2 January 1959. So yes they can be and are wrong.

 

[Andrew Mace]

Re: Anybody ever receive a BMIHT cert that was wro

Well let's see, TS/41804-L from the BMHIHT states the build date as 2 January 1958. More likely 2 January 1959. So yes they can be and are wrong.

According to information I got hold of many years ago, the first TR3 built in calendar year 1959 was TS41630. Apparently, any New Year's Eve/Day celebration in Coventry was short-lived. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cheers.gif

 

[toysrrus]

Hi jdubois;

You know; You pay a pretty good $$$ for one of those Certs: I have Two of them hanging on my Family Room Wall:

You did the right thing by contacting them & resolved the Mystery:

Sounds, (Looks like), a "Typo" in my opinion: /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/confused.gif

Regards, Russ /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/banana.gif

 

[Brooklands]

Just remember that the Heritage Center uses a microfilmed copy of the old 'tallies' cards that Triumph used in production. They ofter were marked up with blobs from leaky ballpoint pens, globs of upholstery glue, and Michelin tread prints as described on page 79 of John Macartney's "In the Shadow of my Father: Life at Triumph".

This book definitely explains why no one at the Heritage Center could figure when my car left the plant...

 

[Adrio]

If so, I wonder where those blue leather seats went...

Is this the seat you are looking for. I got these blue leather seats out of a junk yard back in 1981.