WD 4182

[Ian Grace]

Here's a little insight into the inner workings of the Register.

New member Peter Rowley's 1931 SV saloon WD 4182 has triggered some interesting research regarding its registration date.

Chassis number is SV935 which places it's construction around April 1931. Engine number is U1428 which matches - remembering that chassis numbers began with 101, but SV engines started at 501 - so are are about 500 up on chassis at this early stage in production. The car was first registered in Warwickshire 7/4/31.

Glass's Guide tells me that the first car registered on 1st January 1931 was WD 1709, 1st January 1932 was WD 3244, and 1st January 1933 was 4817, so in theory WD 4128 should have been registered around mid 1932. So my only explanation is that Warwickshire may not have issued numbers in strict sequence. Glass's usually states when this is the case, but there is no such comment for Warwickshire. (You can find a spreadsheet summarizing Glass's for 1929 to 1939 in the Members' Area of the website - titled '2-letter Index Marks'.)

Looking at the Chassis Register, we have no other Warwickshire SV Minor, but do have two OHC Minors:

WD 1321 was first registered 30/9/30 (David King)
WD 1430 was first registered 31/12/29 (Stuart Clark - of Wolseley Hornet fame)

So clearly these two were not issued in sequence.

Peter's engine number (U1428) is also of some interest.

1425 is currently in a Minor in the Netherlands (Evert Spape), and 1427 is in a Minor in New Zealand (Peter Field)!

Finally, interesting that this car's registration number is an anagram of its engine number! What are the chances of that?!

[Ian Grace]

To close out this story, after querying this with Peter, it turns out that the registration number is actually WD 2182, which now fits perfectly with Glass's for an April 1931 registration!

Sacré bleu!