L plate sprints

[tangocharlie1]

How many L reg sprints were actually built, i had always thought that the number was quite small, a few hundred at most, i have heard of twenty or so that were the press cars but having seen Mart's L reg sprint chassis no. 1847, then on sunday saw Sandie newton's M reg sprint which was chassis no. 19** (can't remember the last two numbers) it seems that nearly all of the sub 2000 cars were L plate cars give or take the last hundred or so, far more than i imagined, however anyone know how many of those 1st 2000 would have been exported (if any). Also there has also been much speculation that not all of the 1st 2000 were mimosa yellow, well Sandie's certainly was, and is in the last few cars to be inside the magical ! 2000 figure, it would be interesting to know what colour the cars that were exported were in that first 2000, but seems strange that different colours would be available if the car were being exported. Until proved otherwise i will maintain my belief that the first 2000 were all mimosa yellow and that nearly all were L Plate cars it would seem. Interesting.... over to the Anoraks... anyone seen LEN

[pal1972]

Ive got an 'L' plate sprint, just had heritage cert done to confirm it was mimosa yellow - but now its pimento red!!!! dont know how many there??

[1300dolly]

cant help with the L or yellow question, who is this Len you refer to?
Didn't we used to have an area rep by that name, i seem to remember someone saying that area reps organised meets and local shows?

sarcasm over (for now)

[xvivalve]

5446 sprints were built in 1973. Pro rata 3/8 to a half or so of those would be potentially L registered...

[tangocharlie1]

If that is indeed the case it is a shame so few of those early L plates cars remain.

[sprint1976]

i counted four l reg mimosa sprints at the national day that was without paul geerings and len hughes l reg ones so thats 6

[Len Hughes]

Justin's comments ignored with the complete and utter contempt that they deserve, I would have expected better from a Club official.

Regarding L reg Sprints which I think was the intended topic of this thread, I don't have a clue but there is possibly one very rough way of working it out.

If one makes the assumption that every Triumph dealer would have had at least one in the showroom for the June 19th 1973 launch we need someone with an old BL Dealer listing from that era to come up with that magic number. CHRIS, did you have one at the Butser show ??? That would give a starting point which would need to be topped up with June production and possibly the first 2 weeks of July. Any later than that and it would be too late to register before August.

How many did they build in a week, no idea but if VA369 was built on the 9th April and MikeyB knows the build date of VA 969 as 22 May then a rough weekly build number can be calculated from the difference. 969 - 369 = 600 over 31 working days = 20 a day? So between launch day and the end of the 2nd week in July a further 400 or so would have been built, add this to the unknown no of dealers and bobs your uncle. Again an unknown number would have been held back to get the new M plate in Augustn so these would have to be subtracted..

Better stop rambling, I supose sod knows is a more accurate answer.

[1300dolly]

Im not a club official, well not according to the TDC rules & constitution, a copy of which can be read in the members section (sorry to hi jack your thread chris)

[Neil907]

Mine is 1389 and first registered on 13th july.

[Mad Mart]

BFR is 1847 and registered 10th July.

[hutch76]

Are there any genuine, original L reg cars in any colour other than yellow?

[tangocharlie1]

ummmmmm! The plot Thickens in true British Leyland fashion, To answer Len's question i do have that BL Dealership book not sure what year it is from though, So when i have a spare hour i will calculate how many Dealerships there were in the British Isles. Having digested the above it would seem that if many of the cars were held back to beyond 15th aug date ! then that would explain why some of the lower chassis no.s our on M Plates yet some later ones our on L Plates. How they decided which cars was presumably pot luck. Would 20 sprints a day be normal for that period bearing in mind they were sharing the production line with the other models.?? Or our we saying that most of the cars were already built prior to launch date and sat in a field somewhere, which would also explain how the chassis numbers became confused, im sure an employee did not wonder around the field looking for the next consecutive build no. Nice image... if only they did.!

[Jon Tilson]

I aways beleived that from E registration onwards the date change was 1st August of that year...
This L reg started 1st August 72 and ran til 31st July 73 and M started 1st August 73 and ran til 74 etc...
the change was requested by teh motor trade to stop everyone buying cras on 1st january only and to give a bit of impetus to the normally salck period when evryone went on holiday and hence didnt buy cars...
Its always bee a fairly daft date and now its even mopre stupid...

I strongly suspect that very few L reg sprints were let out. Even by 73 the vast majority of cars were held over for the new reg date and Sprints would have been no exception. Just because a dealer got one didnt mean he had to register it or even let it out as a demonstrator. Even if he did it could have been done on tarade plates, as were a lot of factory deliveries in those days. It was common for new cars to have 200 mile up for this reason..Why knock 200 quid of the residual value at a stroke?

The first Sprint I saw was at Southampton airport in Augist 73...it was obvioulsy brand spanking and was Magenta...and M reg. I dont ever recall having seen an L reg sprint until a couple of years ago.

So I'd move it was probably less than 100...

Jonners

[VYO 372M]

I aways beleived that from E registration onwards the date change was 1st August of that year...
This L reg started 1st August 72 and ran til 31st July 73 and M started 1st August 73 and ran til 74 etc...
the change was requested by the motor trade to stop everyone buying cras on 1st january only and to give a bit of impetus to the normally salck period when evryone went on holiday and hence didnt buy cars...
Its always bee a fairly daft date and now its even mopre stupid...

I strongly suspect that very few L reg sprints were let out. Even by 73 the vast majority of cars were held over for the new reg date and Sprints would have been no exception. Just because a dealer got one didnt mean he had to register it or even let it out as a demonstrator. Even if he did it could have been done on tarade plates, as were a lot of factory deliveries in those days. It was common for new cars to have 200 mile up for this reason..Why knock 200 quid of the residual value at a stroke?

The first Sprint I saw was at Southampton airport in Augist 73...it was obvioulsy brand spanking and was Magenta...and M reg. I dont ever recall having seen an L reg sprint until a couple of years ago.

So I'd move it was probably less than 100...

Jonners

Some interesting points there Jon, and I suspect there could be a lot of truth in what you're saying.

I myself have seen very few L reg Sprints, certainly under a handful, most of the early Sprint's I have seen have come with an M-registration.

Steve

[SprintMWU773V]

Heritage Centre may yield some clues as to build quantities for a given time, though these may not be accurate.