Chassis plaque ORIGINAL - matches frame numbers

[el-saturn]

as stated in the title - please make some comments sandy

[billwill]

? is there something unusual about this?
Don't we all have one of these?

[el-saturn]

bill - wasn't it you who stated this car is unknown in the registry? i would say both nummering make it pretty well documented to a normal eye! sandy

[trw99]

Sandy your car is known about in the records, though no invoice date is recorded. Some unit numbers in the records have no information against them (which is not indicative of any particular thing), but yours is not one of them.

Tim

[rgh0]

An interesting ID plate.

Stamped plates claiming to be from that vintage must always be questioned even if they have a good patina as Lotus seemed not to normally used stamps but to scribe the plates.

However the LP has been scribed while the rest of the plate is stamped but with a mix of number sizes ... an interesting mix and I would bet that not everything on that plate came from the Lotus factory but it has had some subsequent modification or addition

cheers
Rohan

[el-saturn]

did you also see the frame numbers: it all matches AND this car was bought from a swiss architect in 65 and i bought it in 81 - nothing was ever changed! -------------- this IS original and also typical for the chaos at lotus. this chassis 4982 should've been a 26 and not a 36! sandy

[elj221c]

Looks OK to me. My Unit and CH NO are the same too although the unit number is totally different on the body panels.

The 'stops' are the same to, raised from the character line although I have a stop after the CH, NO and 26 on my plate and also after the first and last digit of the number. The eights on my plate are also tilted but a little more. There is no engine number whatsover! Not sure about the fixing. Mine was 'secured' using self tappers.

I think it has been mentioned before that the state of the plate probably depended on who was doing it at the time.

[trw99]

[quote="el-saturn"]this chassis 4982 should've been a 26 and not a 36! sandy[/quote]

So is your car a FHC? If so it is correct to call it a Type 36. As I said before, it is one of the very earliest ones.

Or has someone chopped off the top?

Tim

[denicholls2]

This plate illuminates the process and provides for potentially interesting contrasts to others that indicate a different process. Note the unit number and chassis number are both done with the same stamps, likely at the same time. This is at the birth of the unit. At a later point in the manufacturing process, an engine is pulled from the pile in the warehouse, not necessarily in numerical order, and its unit number is scribed onto the plate.

This is consistent with what was done process-wise on my Type 54. Those cars have the interesting additional bit of having two different Renault engine types, 1470 and 1565 cc, that resulted in Renault restarting the engine numbers. If you just compare my car, a 1969 unit, to other earlier 54's, it appears that the provenance for the engine is suspect because of its low number. But if you have the oft-maligned SCW data, it becomes clear that the switchover to the 1565 happened not in 1970 with the Type 65 as many state, but in late Type 54 production (I believe but am not certain in the '54s destined for the U.S. as all of the 54's I know of with 1565 engines are Federal cars and also have black badges while other 1969 cars have yellow ones.

In the SCW data, the anomalous cars have near-sequential engine numbers that are all lower than the ones for units for the couple of years preceding them. Perfectly consistent with the switchover to 1565's if you accept that Renault didn't simply continue incrementing the engine number where the cylinders, pistons and heads were different.

I'd be curious how many posters have plates where the unit number and chassis number is not entered via the same method (in this case via the same stamps). What method is used is to me less interesting; it is likely that if the first step in building a unit is giving it a name, these two bits would be consistent whether stamped or scribed and whether the chassis number matched the unit number or not.

[el-saturn]

tim - it's supposed to be a FHC,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but when the car got registered the official document stated:
OPEN WITH HARDTOP, so i bought a new dhc body at lotus for 3000? (thats 35 years ago!!), had it brought here for 500?!! and got rid of the awful wide body (it was just shameful with 210mm AVON slicks etc..) so here it sort of always was both: FHC (36) and DHC by official virtue sandy

[trw99]

Sandy, clearly what you have is a little 'bastard'!

Den, I fear you're setting a hare running when there is no need to. Firstly, the Lotus records are far more accurately observed if grouped by invoice date (the only one we have in the majority of cases). If you were to do this, and it can be a laborious process as I know, you will discover that the sequential Unit nos are really rather random. In the case of changes to spec, the Workshop Manual or Parts Book talks of Unit nos. Gather the cars around that particular unit number, then re-order them into working weeks by invoice date and you end up with a different picture. This of course accounts for those owners on here who say that the change can't have taken place then since their earlier car has the feature.

Secondly, you ask for owners who have not got the chassis no on their VIN to sing out. That would be the majority on here. The chassis number when stamped to duplicate the Unit no on a VIN plate was only done for non domestic, export cars. In all the cases I have seen the Unit and chassis no match, because Lotus stamped the chassis no in that way to overcome any mis-understanding about the differences between Unit and chassis nos. In theory all chassis nos matched Unit nos from 26/3602 onwards, so it should not be an issue. In theory!

Tim

[el-saturn]

tim, where i am in the land of precision, the chassis numbering and the plaque MUST be identical AND we added the proper lp4245 even though a 701 block couldn't have that number: BUT its way beyond T H E M!!!!! sandy

[rgh0]

Secondly, you ask for owners who have not got the chassis no on their VIN to sing out. That would be the majority on here. The chassis number when stamped to duplicate the Unit no on a VIN plate was only done for non domestic, export cars.
Tim

Ah.... So that is why both my Elan and Plus 2 never had the unit number stamped on the chassis as they were both domestic UK cars privately exported to Australia.

cheers
Rohan

[el-saturn]

i reckon the swiss (as we know them) wouldn't accept a chassis number WITHOUT a corresponding plaque number. when i go to the MOT here (once every 6 years!!), they ask for the frame number AND look at the plaque number. without mirrors and good torches impossible to see (i luv the english name for flashlight!!) i wouldnt get the so important veteran status (6 year cadence) and my frame number if they dont find BOTH!! my frame nr is under the carbs sandy owner of a bastard 26 or is it really a 36?