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Phase 1 or 2

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Phase I owner here. I bought my car 20 years ago and didn't know anything about phases at the time. I think car condition is more important to value than P1 or P2 but there could be some purchasers that really care about some of the feature differences.

Ultimately I am glad I ended up with a P1 for these reasons:

Cool lever door handles
Small delicate single lights. (and I really dislike the tacked on reflectors)
Usable center console storage
No boxes in the rear floor (for those frequent rear seat passengers!)
Ride height. I think the Phase IIs sit too high. On this one, it is form over function.

Things I like about Phase II.
More compliant suspension.
More ground clearance! (yes its a 2 way street)
Better brakes.

With a 65, you get single lights (but larger and less elegant) and the suspension and brake goodies so that is a pretty good place to be.
 
My phase 1 car is vin HBJ8L26580. From the info I have it is a fairly late production phase 1 car. Steve do you have any other owners listed for this car. I purchased the car from a friend in 2005 and I know he was not the original owner. He has passed away and I know he purchased the car sometime in the early 90's. Thanks and have a good day!

John
 
John, I have the owner before you recorded from information you provided in December 2005. I also recorded that (according to that owner), the previous owner before him was in New Jersey and that the NJ owner was only the second owner of the car. No names or contact information available for the original owner or the second owner.

I would like everyone to know that I am asked very frequently if I have any record of previous owners of their car. I strongly believe it's important for any Healey owner who thinks the ownership history of their car is important to preserve for future owners that they make sure the appropriate registry has that information. There isn't anyplace else to save the ownership history you know about your Healey so that it is available to future owners.

There were only 124 Phase 1 cars built after 26580.
 
Steve,
Does that mean by 26580 car was probably built in April of 1964 as that was the last month of phase 1 production and only 124 cars made after mine? Thanks and have a good day!

John
 
John, 26578 was built 26 March - 20 April 1964, 26584 was built 12 - 13 May 64. It's likely that 26580 was built in the neighborhood of April '64, but the cars were not built in strict numerical chassis order, so without the BMIHT data the build date is only an educated guess. And there were other cars still in assembly into May, so it isn't strictly true that Phase 1 production ended in April.
Other examples:
26478 (1 Apr - 19 May 64)
26557 (27 Apr - 11 May 64)

When I said there were only 124 Phase 1 cars produced after yours, I meant by chassis number. Since they weren't built in chassis number order, it would take quite a bit of time to figure out the exact order of build of all Phase 1 cars by date. I've done that already for the first 32 cars. And to determine "build order", you have to decide whether that is based on the start of build, or the end of build. Of the first 32 Phase 1 cars built, the one with the lowest chassis number (25315) had the latest "build date" based on the start date (20 Jan 64).
 
25508 began the assembly process on 28 November and completed it on 2 December 1963. I would say that is fairly early. As I said, I have only sorted the first 32 chassis numbers according to build start date and build end date. If I insert 25508's start date into the first 32 cars, it would become #30. By assembly end date, it would become #20. If I had the opportunity (i.e., time and data) to sort ALL the Phase 1 cars by build start and end dates, 25508 may move down the list a bit.
I did the first 32 cars because I have the build dates for all of them and someone with a car within that list was interested in the statistics. I do not yet have build dates for all 1,390 Phase 1 cars, but I do have them for 25315 - 25381.

If everyone who has the BMIHT certificate for their BJ8 -- and who knows, or isn't sure, they haven't already provided it -- would send me a copy, the statistics that can be developed can be improved, and our understanding of how these cars were built would increase.
 
Hi All/Steve
As Steve already may know, I placed an order for a BJ"7" at a Dealer of the New York importer of BMC in July or August of 1963 and called to the Dealer in early April of 1964 and presented my BJ"8" instead of a BJ7. I immediately accepted HBJ8L/26618 and took the first drive on a perfect top-down Healey day. Since I am the first and only owner of this car, I have had little interest in acquiring a Certificate to validate the model or build date. However, How important is the Certificate after I've passed and my family decides to sell my Healey?

John, 26578 was built 26 March - 20 April 1964, 26584 was built 12 - 13 May 64. It's likely that 26580 was built in the neighborhood of April '64, but the cars were not built in strict numerical chassis order, so without the BMIHT data the build date is only an educated guess. And there were other cars still in assembly into May, so it isn't strictly true that Phase 1 production ended in April.
Other examples:
26478 (1 Apr - 19 May 64)
26557 (27 Apr - 11 May 64)
Click to expand...

I am a little confused and may be missing something as I received delivery April, 1964 in the USA and my SN# is later then those listed and specified for an earlier build. When considering the addition of shipping and handling from England, I would expected the other production groups stated would have been much earlier.

Thoughts,
Ray(64HJ8P1)
 
The last BJ8 P1 was 26704. My car is 26687 so only 17 cars from the new and improved P2s!
 
Ray, the build dates for 26618 were 24 Mar - 20 Apr 64

Off Trim Line: 24 Mar 64
Off Body Line: 24 Mar 64
Off Test: 24 Mar 64
Off Rectification: 20 Apr 64
Off Finishing: 20 Apr 64
Date Advised: 20 Apr 64
Despatched: 24 Apr 64


Certificates are nice to have. Unfortunately, certificates have also been used to "verify" cars that are not truly what they were when they left the factory. For example, ordering a cert using an engine serial number and then re-creating the car's identity plates to match the VIN and body numbers on the cert without knowing for sure that the engine is original to that chassis. Of course, as the original and only owner that does not apply in your case.
 
I also have a BJ8 phase 2 but with the earlier single indicator body. It's serial number is 27316, which I believe was June 1964. This must have been one of the last early body phase 2's.
It was most confusing when I first aquired the car as I was advised that due to the single repeaters, it was a phase 1 car?
i wonder how many phase 2 early body cars were built?
 
The first Phase 2 car was 26705, with body number 71963. According to the BMC BJ7/BJ8 parts manual, the single lights were produced up to body 76137 (chassis 31223).
That would calculate to 4,175 bodies that should have the single lights. Note that 31223 is not necessarily the last chassis number with single lights because chassis and body numbers were not assigned in sequence, so some of the bodies between 71963 and 76137 could have ended up in a later chassis number.

I have seen a lot of cars offered for sale that are described as Phase 1 cars because they have the single lights, but Phase 1 cars have the smaller glass lenses on the lights like BJ7s while the early Phase 2 cars have the larger plastic lenses.
 
BJ8Healeys said:
The first Phase 2 car was 26705, with body number 71963. According to the BMC BJ7/BJ8 parts manual, the single lights were produced up to body 76137 (chassis 31223).
That would calculate to 4,175 bodies that should have the single lights. Note that 31223 is not necessarily the last chassis number with single lights because chassis and body numbers were not assigned in sequence, so some of the bodies between 71963 and 76137 could have ended up in a later chassis number.

I have seen a lot of cars offered for sale that are described as Phase 1 cars because they have the single lights, but Phase 1 cars have the smaller glass lenses on the lights like BJ7s while the early Phase 2 cars have the larger plastic lenses.
Click to expand...

Steve,
thanks, that's very interesting and I never imagined there would have been so many phase 2 cars with the single lights body. I thought it would have been maybe a few hundred at most? And thus quite rare?
 
Hiii...my Healey is the 287## i think its Phase II but he rear lamps are the small ones from Phase I.
Happy Healeying
Joey
Austin_Healey_026xx.jpgAustin_Healey_011x.jpg
 
OH !:
There was a short period of time when Phase 2 shrouds were not available and Phase one's were used to repair phase 2 cars .
 
Hi Steve,

Thank you for the production information on my P1 Healey. I know I picked the car up from the dealer late in April of 1964 so shipment from England must have been in a hurry.

A month after receiving the car, the engine started to bang one day on initial start. Turning it off immediately and having it flat beaded back to the Dealer resulted in my loss of use of the car for about 2 month or so. It turned out to be an improperly tightened connecting rod that allowed the piston to hit a valve in one cylinder. Although the time to actually repair the problem was reasonably short, they had difficulty getting a new piston through the US Distributor in NYC (actually located in NJ) from the Healey factory. I guess they really were in a hurry to ship.

Thanks again for the information and all the Best,
Ray(64BJ8P1)
 
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