Earliest customer 4.5s?

[robsco]

Looking through the car's paperwork today, the chassis number suggests a build month of June 1997, which makes it a very early 4.5. I can only think of one or two other R-reg 4.5s on here, I'm wondering who has the earliest?

[Obiwonkeyblokey]

did you ever find out if it was one I ordered from the factory? likely to be me or louise spaven.

[HarryW]

Someone will be along to correct me, but did the earliest 4.5's have small journal cranks albeit billet ala the first Tuscan racers?

[steviejasp]

Mine was on a R plate originally. How do you decipher the chassis number?

[C3BER]

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=947...

[robsco]

Obiwonkeyblokey said:

did you ever find out if it was one I ordered from the factory? likely to be me or louise spaven.

Hi Owen, I have no paperwork with your names, but the car was supplied and PDI'd by Henley Heritage so there is a very good chance. Steviejasp, there is a thread somewhere which will tell you how, but essentially the last letter in the chassis number is the month built. I know F was June so you could work forwards or backwards from there.

[C3BER]

I'm amazing Rob, bloody amazing.

[robsco]

But modesty isn't a strong point Mick!!

[C3BER]

I resemble that remark Rob ;-)

[FUBAR]

Mine's a 98 R and according to nemasis was the 13th (bizarrely my lucky number...he says fingers crossed!) 4.5 made. It has a billet crank and there was some mumbling at the time of my engine rebuild of it having some internals similar to the Tuscan racer internals, but it all became white noise to me after that

[steviejasp]

November 1997 for me then.

[robsco]

FUBAR said:

Mine's a 98 R and according to nemasis was the 13th (bizarrely my lucky number...he says fingers crossed!) 4.5 made. It has a billet crank and there was some mumbling at the time of my engine rebuild of it having some internals similar to the Tuscan racer internals, but it all became white noise to me after that

Can you decipher when yours was built from your chassis number Fubes?

[FUBAR]

Not me personally, but I had a chat with nemasis on the phone and he looked it up from his build sheets.

[anonymous-user]

Looks like my 4.5 (bought from BCA) is a Sept 97 chassis build, engine stamp begins with 744 which I think means week 44 in 1997, which would be October or thereabouts and car was first registered in Dec 97. When I went to see the engine stripped, apart from the large journal billet crank, I don't recall APM saying there were any other fancy internals or anything.

[pottman]

Interesting stuff Nemasis.

Can't confess to having an early 4.5, but maybe an early 4.5LW.

Chassis no ends in 2201 - anything you can tell me about it please?

[ridds]

I'm digging out my build number at the weekend as mine's a Halcyon Midas Pearl. Mine was registered in 1998 though so certainly not the earliest.

[Mark.]

Lets try to fill the gaps - here's a cut and paste from an email exchange with Nemasis
"on production line 27th November 1998, Rolex Blue, signed off after test drive by me on 29th November 1998"

apparently PDI'd 25/12/98 (hmmm) and first registered 06/01/99.

[Warwick67]

Interesting stuff, my 4.5 is an R reg. Looking through the thread about chassis number it still carried the FAC2 designation, the year letter is V which I think is 1997, the month letter is M, last time I checked there were only 12 months in the year so I'm not sure what this means? ! The chassis number end 2454.....
Not sure what all this means?

[anonymous-user]

Warwick67 said:

Interesting stuff, my 4.5 is an R reg. Looking through the thread about chassis number it still carried the FAC2 designation, the year letter is V which I think is 1997, the month letter is M, last time I checked there were only 12 months in the year so I'm not sure what this means? ! The chassis number end 2454.....
Not sure what all this means?

From this link M is December.

[Warwick67]

Cheers Steve