Post
by Peter Cresswell » Wed Jul 22, 2020 10:37 am
Hi Tom,
A simple question but one that has a complicated answer. A full and complex explanation can be found in Clausager's Original MGB book but I'll try and give you a flavour here!
MG didn't build the body shells themselves, in common with other BMC/BL plants the bodies were made centrally within the group. In the case of the MGB body shells were initially built at 3 locations - Bodies Branch, Coventry; Pressed Steel, Swindon; and Pressed Steel Cowley. Each of these had a letter designation as a suffix to the Commission Number - F for Coventry; P for Swindon and Z for Cowley. Eventually Coventry production was switched to Swindon and Cowley, and from 1976 all bodies were built at Swindon. There are many pictures of bare metal bodyshells being transported to Abingdon and then stored outside until they were used on the production line.
For the Roadster Coventry bodies had two identities. The first related to the Commission Number using the suffix letter and the second is the alloy tag rivetted to the nearside inner wing, which starts with the MGB letters prefix. This identity was not recorded by Abingdon and can't be used to identify a car for example to enable correct ordering of spares. It is simply a number given to the bare bodyshell as it was completed. MGB prefixed numbers started at 101. A second number without a letter prefix was stamped on a steel plate and welded to the offside inner wing and this started at 1. In both cases the numbering ran to over 110,000 (so 220,000 bodyshells). On Roadsters built from 1969, with Swindon and Cowley bodies only the MGB prefix tag is used and from the introduction of the Mark 2 cars the MGB letters are followed by a fourth letter for some export markets.
For the GT The system is much simpler with only one body number being used. This starts with the letters GBD and has a suffix letter P.
Eventually, of course all the information was incorporated into the VIN plate but this came very late in MGB production.
The bottom line is that it is the Car Number that is the usually required equivalent on the Chassis Number and it is this that should appear in the log book and not the number beginning MGB or GBD.
Pete
Pete
1969 MGB Roadster
2011 MG 6 TSE Magnette
2007 Mercedes SLK
Plus 32 other cars since 1965
