Early 'S'

[assynt road]

Hi guy's, bought the good wife an S1 a few weeks ago, and have been avidly reading the Steve Heath bible I got with it ever since. I have been wondering actually how early a car it is. The bible says that the first twenty cars made had twin bonnet release cables, which mine has. It's registered as an 1987 'E' plate and the chassis no. ends in 448. Does anybody know wether it was one of the first '20', or was it retro fitted with the twin bonnet pulls? Sorry I can't work out how to add it to the register, anybody do it for me if I supply the info? Thanks, by the way it sounds lovely! Steve.

[Jed-S]

Well it looks like you've stumped all the armchair experts on here.... The only thing I will say from having lurked on this forum for 3 years is that there have been quite a few references by people who have purchased "one of the first 20 cars made". I doubt it is something anyone would want to retrofit to be honest, but I do wonder if it is just 20 that were like this.
Didn't the early ones also have a digital clock or is that all the S1 series?

Maybe one of the real experts in the classic TVR trade would like to comment?

[graham kay]

Mine has the twin bonnet catches as well and the bloke who sold me it told me that made it an early one. It also has the digital clock as well. I will have a look at my serial number and see what it is and post it on here.

[bil]

the bible suggests the the build number, ie the last three digists of the vin number, were the total number of all tvrs build during that specific year, the bible also suggests that there were 89 s1's built in 87 ie d and e plates.

testing a theory about vins, extrapolating work due by griff owners iirc, i think the first three letters are the tvr unique id, four and five are the series D=sseries, six and seven are engine variant n=non cat c=cat 1=2.8 2=2.9, eight is fuel type, nine is vin verification, ten is year, eleven is month.

if the theory is close the year and month digits might assist in pointing out wheter your s1 would be any early or late 87 and thus if you were in the 20 bracket.

would be interested to know if this theory works for anyone else? and waiting to be shot down......

obviously not wanting people to publish thier full vin on the www.

bil

[Gerald-TVR]

From Owners List & Other Information

Chassis Number Interpretation

The last eight characters of the chassis number can indicate when it was made.
The eighth character in from the right of the serial number is the manufacturing year letter.
The characters to the left of this define the model and other information.

Start........R      J     011    783     END
            Year  Plant  Model  Build
            Code         Code   Number   

[jimed]

You could email the TVRCC archivist (Richard Sails) and give him your info and see if he can help.
Jim

[assynt road]

Thanks for your input guys I'll go down the archive route I think. Fasinating stuff these histories!

[Barkychoc]

Is the speedo & rev counter the right way up - ie zero is at the bottom left - so the needle goes clockwise from 8 oclock to 4 oclock if that makes sense. Later cars go clockwise 2 oclock to 10 oclock.

[assynt road]

Barkychoc said:

Is the speedo & rev counter the right way up - ie zero is at the bottom left - so the needle goes clockwise from 8 oclock to 4 oclock if that makes sense. Later cars go clockwise 2 oclock to 10 oclock.

Hi, both the speedo and rev counter use the 8 o'clock to 4 o'clock start and stop positions. Is this different for later cars then?