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How does one determine car year?

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I

ichthos

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I just recieved British Heritage certificates for both my Bugeye and TR6 yesterday. It states the "year of build" as August 20, 1959 for the Bugeye. The registration had originally listed this as a 1960 Bugeye. The chassis number is 21339. The TR6 "year of build" is listed as June 24, 1969, and is listed as a 1969 on the registration. The chassis number is CC/30809-L. I thought historically that new cars on the lot after October were considered to be the following year. For example, If I were to buy a new car in October of this year, it would be considered a 2011. So, what year are my cars? I am confused by this -c an someone explain how this works?
Kevin
 
Generally speaking, in the old days, like when our little cars were born, the year model was when the vehicle was registered. Your BE with a chassis # 21339 is shown to have been built between Jun 59 (19015) and Aug. 59 (21546). That is according to the Horler book. As the cars were not always built in order, the Heritage certificate looks correct at Aug. 20, 1959. So a car takes a while to ship to US, and then it can sit a while on a lot before it its sold. Also, it was to the dealer's advantage to sell it as a 1960, rather than a 1959, which was a one year older car. To answer your question, there is no hard and fast rule, for our vehicles.
Today, one can look at the VIN and it has a designation for what year model the car is. that is so that recalls, service, etc can all be tracked by year, and dealers don't change the year to suit their purposes.
Scott in CA
 
The Tunebug was made November 20, 1959, and titled as a 1960. I consider both to be correct. Our cars didn't have a "model year" as such. The title year could be a couple years later if the car sat on a lot for a while.

I tell folks that the Tunebug is a 1959, as that is when it was built. The biggest thing is to know the VIN when ordering parts, as changes happened at random through the run of cars.
 
My Bugeye is #21000, so it was also built in August 1959 and titled as a 1960. I won't get into how I did it, but I managed to get it officially changed to a 1959 model on the registration.
 
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