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1956 Austin A35 [A2S5] 
Class: Cars, Sedan — Model origin: 
![1956 Austin A35 [A2S5]](i334434.jpg)
![[*]](/res/star.png){kind=small}
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Comments about this vehicle| Author | Message |
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◊ 2010-09-16 02:08 |
The vehicle details for OFF 377 are: Date of Liability 01 09 2011 Date of First Registration 30 06 1955 Year of Manufacture 1955 Cylinder Capacity (cc) 948CC Fuel Type Petrol Vehicle Colour GREY |
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◊ 2010-09-16 12:24 |
? It's got the bigger A35 rear window... |
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◊ 2010-09-16 12:45 |
And at 948cc it's also got the bigger A35 engine, the A30 being 803cc, and A35 style rear lights. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, irrespective of the highly fallible DVLA, it might just be a duck (or an A35). |
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◊ 2010-09-16 14:34 |
Autotrader's numberplate checker (one of the sites that seems to use the DVLA database) told me it was an A30 Seven. They must have made an error. I didn't know what this was at first, I'm nowhere near old enough to remember things like this on the road, the first family car my grandad owned when my dad was a little boy (he is now 55) was an A35 van. But the A35 came out in 1956, not 1957. -- Last edit: 2010-09-16 14:43:26 |
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◊ 2010-09-16 15:03 |
Some of the xFF xxx series registrations were reused by DVLA for re-registering classic cars from the 1990s onwards. It's possible that OFF 377 was first issued in June 1955 as DVLA claim, but not at that point on this grey Austin which first appeared with a different (unknown and probably untraceable) number. Not a totally convincing explanation (eg did DVLA re-issue dead numbers or only unused numbers in this and other similar reused series?) but it might apply. Alternatively it's just a DVLA date error. |
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◊ 2010-09-16 15:06 |
The plate might belong to another car, like som others ín this film, or possibly it is an A30 that has been upgraded with A35 features after a crash and repair. Not likely, but such things have occured. The A35 was launched at Earls Court Motor Show on october 2nd 1956, for the 1957 modelyear. Production ran between september -56 until spring 1959 for the Saloons. |
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◊ 2010-09-16 15:36 |
I favour dsl's theory: compare /vehicle_129160-Wolseley-6-80-1954.html . Merioneth CC, the original issuing authority for FF registrations, actually issued relatively few, and DVLA often used such combinations for post-1974 age-related reissues. |
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◊ 2010-09-16 20:39 |
Merioneth stopped issuing the unsuffixed registrations at HFF (999?) in 1963, and went on to AFF 1B in 1964, so "OFF" without a suffix is therefore a DVLA issue and could be from a date that doesn't match the Austin in the picture. DVLA will not re-issue dead numbers, one of our family cars was a 1934 Wolseley Hornet registered JP 95, which I would love to have on my Bentley, but the car was scrapped and the number is dead and gone. -- Last edit: 2010-09-20 09:26:05 |
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◊ 2010-09-16 21:32 |
"OFF without a suffix is therefore a DVLA issue" - my earlier guess now confirmed. "could be from a date that doesn't match the Austin in the picture." - although we've agreed this because it's an A35, this should not actually happen, so there is a DVLA error. DVLA re-registered cars are possibly not going to be precisely dated for other examples on imdcb. -- Last edit: 2010-09-16 21:33:34 |
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◊ 2010-09-16 21:54 |
This model year thing, isn't it more of an American thing? ('59 Cadillac etc.) I prefer to put the actual year rather than to round up to the next year if a car was built in the autumn or winter. -- Last edit: 2010-09-16 21:55:56 |
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◊ 2010-09-17 00:49 |
No, not really. The concept of modelyears has been around for almost as long as there´s been cars for sale, I´ve seen it used in ads dating back to at least the 1910´s in different, mainly european, Motor Magazines both for european makes and american. It´s a way for the manufacturers to show off that they´re ahead of the competition. Another thing is that annual updates of current models, and most introductions of new models take place during fall. Retooling and service of the machinery take place during summer holidays when the workers are off. Of course there are continuous technical improvements and introductions take place on autoshows at other times during the year, but mainly this is how it´s been working for the last century and in large part still is. It is true that american manufacturers made this very obvious with annual facelifts for a very long time, say from about the mid twenties and forward, but the concept was already there and it´s still used in the autotrade even if the external differences per modelyear are minor or even invisible, there´s usually some annual upgrade done. The basic rule is that the modelyear runs from fall to summer, but there have been lots of exceptions from that over the years. It´s complicated to keep track of what´s what about years when searching info since most sources are vague on what they´re referring to. The stated year/date, is it about the pressrelease or when production started? Or perhaps about the modelyear of the cars that the first customer could buy? Sometimes it´s the same, but in many cases the info lands on different years. An example is the Renault 4, pressrelease was on June 16 1961, production began during august but sales didn´t start until october as 1962 modelyear for the customers. Another example is Fiat that for many years released their news in spring, and sold them only on homemarket for the first six months or so, like 1300/1500 introduced april 1961 in Italy and considered that modelyear too, but no regular export except promotion cars until late fall making them 1962 models on abroad markets. A recent example is the new Volvo S60, shown for the first time in february this year. Pre-production cars have been out on the roads since late spring, and now during september the first cars reach their buyers as 2011 models. An exception from modelyears could be VW before august 1955, refinements and technical improvements were introduced when they were ready. But the late forties and early fifties was the sellers market, virtually anything could be sold and most manufacturers couldn´t keep up with demand anyway, so they didn´t need to worry so much about the competion. It´s as important to try to get the modelyear right as it is to try to find the correct modelname out, it´s basically about what would the original buyer recognize. Registrys like DVLA can give leads to this, but the only thing it says (if it´s correctly entered) is when the car was put into traffic the first time. The field for "year of manufacture" is automated from the date of first registry. It´s not based on facts given by the manufacturer and it wasn´t used in older registry. From what I know it´s a rule from the nineties coming from EU. Swedish registry did use modelyear up till 1997. But from 1998 this was dropped and only date of registry was entered for some years. |
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◊ 2010-09-18 16:01 |
That was already discussed many times, how come you don't know that yet?  |
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◊ 2010-11-04 00:09 |
I´ve done some digging on the subject of modelyears and found some examples from the early years of motoring. The british magazine, The Light Car, had a list over 1916 models, published in November 1915: ![[Image: tlc12.6563.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/0is844/tlc12.6563.jpg) The french magazine, La Vie Automobile, published a test report in September 1912 over the 1913 model Chenard et Walcker: ![[Image: lva11.6232.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/0is20/lva11.6232.jpg) ![[Image: lva12.72.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/0is97/lva12.72.jpg) And the oldest sample I found was in the german paper, Automobil-Welt, two ads from october 1906 over 1907 models for Bianchi and Dixi: ![[Image: aw11.3174.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/0is23/aw11.3174.jpg) ![[Image: aw12d.7775.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/0is824/aw12d.7775.jpg) ![[Image: aw13.1258.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/0is687/aw13.1258.jpg) The Dixi ad is the oldest, published in N:o 94 October 10 1906, and a couple of weeks earlier, in september, the same ad talked about Modelle 1906. I will have to get back to that library again and do some more research, I found an interesting debate in the american magazine, Motor, from summer 1911 about if it wasn´t about time to stop using the "Season Models" as they were called at the time. The 1912 models began to appear already in may that year. Most manufacturers voted in favour of ending it, but that never happened. Obviously the system with modelyears have been effective for a very long time, even longer than I initially thought. -- Last edit: 2011-12-07 20:29:02 |
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