Fast Marina Magazine

What and where is the oldest known surviving Marina? I have seen several'K' reg but I assume there will be 'J' reg ones about as it was the reg when they were released? Unless they were released after Aug 71 on a K... I dont know the date sorry, still learning the facts :roll:

I dont know the chassis number of mine without looking but I think its in the 8000's registered on the 15/3/72. Does anyone know the number of the oldest one? Just curious really

J platers were the first one. There are a few knocking about. I think Frank has some figures.

Larry has the oldest car in Scotland with a chassis number of 5055. The chassis number on my 1300 CWT Austin Marina Van is 3018 so that's definitely the oldest in Scotland, possibly the oldest 13 CWT in the country too. I think Pete woods Van's chassis number is around 700 but that was an 1100 when new I think?

Sean

Beckett bros "Ancient Lemons"

Hi everyone my 1100 van number is 2396 born on the 25-09-72

d13ker67 wrote:Hi everyone my 1100 van number is 2396 born on the 25-09-72

Chris (RustyCoupe?) from Oamaru, NZ, has a blaze TC Coupe first registered 26/9/72, however that is an Aussie 1750 OHC (chassis # 4908 and engine # 1436).

My little project to troll the NZ Motor Vehicle Registration database has born some fruit.

For the period when Marina's were produced, registration plates had the format AB1234, and it took about 2 years to go through each letter range (i.e. 260,000 combinations for Axnnnn). Plates weren't issued in strictly sequential order. As I understand it, a "batch" of plates were sent to each Post Office, so some batches were issued faster than others (particularly if there was a lerger dealership nearby! :shock: ).

The register is incomplete, as cancelled plates were "lost" when the records were computerised about 1990.

Anyhow, so far I have been able to harvest data for plates in the GA to GF ranges. These cover April 1972 to April 1973.

There are 18,247 vehicles still on the register (out of the 208,000 possible combinations). Of these, 161 are Marinas, but only 8 have live plates. Only 2 (GD1398 & GE7520) are currently on the road.

Plate Year Colour CC First Reg Chassis No
GC1682 1972 Red 1,750 1972, July 25th 81373
GD1398 1972 Brown 1,798 1972, August 10th YH2S4914
GC5623 1973 Green 1,746 1973, January 15th YH2S21136
GD9838 1973 Orange 1,750 1973, April 5th YH5190001439NZ
GE7540 1972 Red 1,798 1972, July 26th MH4S9S126983M
GF6294 1972 Green 1,750 1972, November 22nd YHS19 0000604NZ
GF7663 1972 Orange 1,746 1972, December 19th YH26570
GF7694 1972 White 1,746 1972, December 22nd 1638

Just waiting for the data for the "F" plates, to see if there are any older Marinas still on the road....

I`m still doing research on this one guys, but as far as MMOC records go the oldest 1800 still belongs to Harry Hayes, which is a flame red Saloon on a `J` plate, and the oldest 1300 belongs to me and Jimbo over here on the island which is also a flame red Saloon on a `J` plate , there are quite a few `K` plate cars out there still and a fair few `L` plate cars the reason for this is probably mainly due to tax exemption but also having worked on all marks and variants over the years i have found that the earlier mk1 cars are generally better put together and the steel is of a higher quality than the later cars.

For us "colonials", how do the plate letters relate to years?

In our system, there is no direct link between letters and years. The plates were just issued alphabetically (AB1234), so chronological order roughly follows alphabetical order (although plates appear to have been made in order, they were distributed in batches to Post Offices for issuing, so busier Post Offices issued their plates faster and quieter Post Offices have sometimes taken years to issue theirs :shock: ). The rate of letter turnover was directly related to new car sales, so higher in 1970-73 (100,000pa), then a marked downturn 74-79 (70,000pa).

For example, GC6383 was issued on 11/3/72 to a 1.3, and GC6332 was issued on 17/4/72 to a 1.8 saloon.

GA - GZ Jan 72 - Apr 74
HA - HZ Apr 74 - Dec 76
IA - IZ Dec 76 - Apr 79
JA - JZ Apr 79 - Jul 80
KA - KZ Jul 80 - Jun 82

The letters on an English plate relate to where the car was registered and the year it was registered. It all started in 1963 when the first letter "A " was used as a suffix on the registration plate. The first 3 letters denote the area that the car was registered in i.e WOW would have been registered in Birmingham the "O" in the middle being the letter that mattered. The numbers usually related to the application for registration number and the end letter denoted the year. This ran from the 1st Jan to the 31 Dec. until 1967 when they decided to change the date of new registrations hence the suffix letter "E" only ran from 1st. Jan to the 31st July. The new registration year then ran from the 1st Aug. 1967 to the 31st July 1968. This then carried on for the remaining letters of the alphabet with the exceptions of I, O,Q, U, and Z. In 1983 when they had come to the end of the run they simply moved the suffix letter to a prefix letter and started again. Hope this helps to answer your question

Gary.

Hmm, 1983 + 26 = 2009. Where are they putting the "year" letter for 2010?

Ah well, that's another story.

By dropping the I, O,Q, U, and Z suffixes and prefixes, the run of year letters finished early. From September 2001 the layout again changed, this time to;

2 letters indicating the issuing office
2 digits indicating a half year
3 letters to add complexity

So KC 07 ODB = my Honda CRV

KC = Luton
07 = March 07 to August 07
ODB = anything from the alphabet

To see it all explained go to

http://www.wolfbane.com/vreg.htm

Where you can work out any UK reg number from 1963 onwards and any ROI number from 1987.

The bottom line is between 1.5 and 2 million cars are registered new in the UK in a year, so we burn through any system fairly quickly, the current system will last to 2050.

We're a simple lot down here. :roll: When they got to ZZ9999, they simply changed to ABC123.

Although, I note no FA, FO, VC or VD plates were issued.

in the land down under i have a genuine aussie TC coupe Camino Gold colour,
body number YH2S5 609 12-72 (approx) as BMC/Leyland Australia started their count from 500
this is TC coupe number 109
my Dry Red 4door was a 12-72 1750 auto and the body number YHS20 1451 ie: 4 door sedan number 941.
current ly looking at an australian marina born 4-72 (released in australia in april '72) YH20 708 so
4 door sedan number 208.
when leyland really took over, the numbering changeds and started counting at 1000
ie: car number 1070 for example would be the 70th car in sequence
as for the youngest in australia it would be around 1975

What date did the Leyland factory close during 1975? That would certainly answer the "youngest" question.

All the Leyland Marina tooling went to South Africa, where production continued from 1976 to 1978 (for the 2.6, possibly longer for the 1750). Haven't found any evidence that the revised Leyland Marina was assembled in NZ from CKD packs, but it's possible they were assembled here later than in Aus (as was the P76, which was still being assembled in NZ from CKD packs in 1976, a year after it went out of production in Australia).

I have these chassis numbers for NZ assembled cars (which have to be read with a grain of salt, as most have incomplete details recorded :roll: ) :-

• Rego Date Chassis
  GC6383 11/03/72 MA45A510260IM (1275, so English)
  GE1224 27/04/72 92204 (1800, so also English)
  GE5432 06/07/72 595 (1750 - first Aussie registered)
  GE8563 03/08/72 899 (1750 - first Aussie Coupe registered)
  GF2455 26/10/72 YHS190000552NZ (1750)
  GG866 13/11/72 YHS180000834NZ (1500)

The lowest number I can find is 504 (2/10/72), then 505, 506, 509 and 520.

What did the first letters mean in the Aussie chassis code? YHS18, YHS19, YH252, YH254, YH52 (some of these may have been misrecorded ).

I have these chassis numbers for NZ assembled cars (which have to be read with a grain of salt, as most have incomplete details recorded :roll: ) :-

Rego Date Chassis
GC6383 11/03/72 MA45A510260IM (1275, so English)
GE1224 27/04/72 92204 (1800, so also English)
GE5432 06/07/72 595 (1750 - first Aussie registered)
GE8563 03/08/72 899 (1750 - first Aussie Coupe registered)
GF2455 26/10/72 YHS190000552NZ (1750)
GG866 13/11/72 YHS180000834NZ (1500)


The lowest number I can find is 504 (2/10/72), then 505, 506, 509 and 520.

What did the first letters mean in the Aussie chassis code? YHS18, YHS19, YH252, YH254, YH52 (some of these may have been misrecorded ).

YHS19 0000552 should be a 4door super 1750 manual car number 52!
YHS18 0000834 should be a 4door super 1500 manual car number 334
YH2S2 --------- should be a coupe deluxe 1750 manual
YH2S4---------- should be a coupe T.C 1750 manual (very desirable :P )
YHS2- --------- should be a 0 at the end which make it a 4door super 1750 auto
your car number 504 is actually car 4 of the line in that model/trim combo

they actually stopped marina production arouind the same time as the P76 in '74 but some stock would have stuck around
the australian marinas run with a letter/number coding as above until midway through '73 and then changed to a p76 style of numbering ie: your YHS18 834 would transcribe to the leyland number as 024X4S2M14 834