NickDunning
Active Member
The base unit number is the number your P6's body had when it was produced at Pressed Steel, before being shipped to Solihull or elsewhere for assembly.
All cars should have one, although they do go missing or get painted over.
They can be very revealing of the date your car was made, and we have sadly uncovered more than a few 'ringers' in recent times in the UK due to people swapping identities between good post Jan. 1st 1973 cars and nasty tax-free ones.
Don't get cought out, if you're in doubt about a car you're looking at we can help, and Mark Gray has extensive records now which enable us to identify the approx changeover dates from a base unit number as well as a chassis number.
There are several different flavours of base unit:
Manual 4 cylinders are all numbered consecutively, starting, in late 1962 with M 000001.
Automatic 4 cylinders start with 'A' - A 000001.
Automatic V8 cars start at BA 000001
Manual V8's BM 000001
This is the base unit plate on Paul Birch's summer 1973 2000SC.
The plate is situated under the carpet/rubber inside the boot in lip in front of the spare wheel (when viewing from the rear of the car).
In the case of this car the spare wheel is mounted on the boot.
Here's a few interesting ones:
This is the plate from CHA14T, one of the last batch of 2200TC's built in January 1977. (initially LHD, then converted to RHD before being sold on the UK Market in 1979). I think this is the highest number we have. There's no such thing as Series 1 or Series 2 in the world of base units. They start at 000001 and finish, in the case of manual 4-cylinders, at somewhere just ahead of M 215629.
If I remember correctly, Brenda's gold Earl's Court show 1963 car, chassis number 40000100A, has base unit number M 000142.
This the plate (BA 000542) from our Mr. Rockdemon's PAE, showing what a lovely early V8 it is indeed.
Last one here is an example of a ringer. This was the base unit plate (BM 013829) on a particularily dead 'K' registered 3500S with a very low chassis number (48100454A) we were offered a couple of years ago. The car, on the surface, looked to correctly be a 1971/1972 car. A little digging revealed that it was actually a 1974/1975 car. They only actually built 17000 3500S's. The owner wasn't aware and was sold the car by his motor dealer friend! oops!
All cars should have one, although they do go missing or get painted over.
They can be very revealing of the date your car was made, and we have sadly uncovered more than a few 'ringers' in recent times in the UK due to people swapping identities between good post Jan. 1st 1973 cars and nasty tax-free ones.
Don't get cought out, if you're in doubt about a car you're looking at we can help, and Mark Gray has extensive records now which enable us to identify the approx changeover dates from a base unit number as well as a chassis number.
There are several different flavours of base unit:
Manual 4 cylinders are all numbered consecutively, starting, in late 1962 with M 000001.
Automatic 4 cylinders start with 'A' - A 000001.
Automatic V8 cars start at BA 000001
Manual V8's BM 000001
This is the base unit plate on Paul Birch's summer 1973 2000SC.
The plate is situated under the carpet/rubber inside the boot in lip in front of the spare wheel (when viewing from the rear of the car).
In the case of this car the spare wheel is mounted on the boot.
Here's a few interesting ones:
This is the plate from CHA14T, one of the last batch of 2200TC's built in January 1977. (initially LHD, then converted to RHD before being sold on the UK Market in 1979). I think this is the highest number we have. There's no such thing as Series 1 or Series 2 in the world of base units. They start at 000001 and finish, in the case of manual 4-cylinders, at somewhere just ahead of M 215629.
If I remember correctly, Brenda's gold Earl's Court show 1963 car, chassis number 40000100A, has base unit number M 000142.
This the plate (BA 000542) from our Mr. Rockdemon's PAE, showing what a lovely early V8 it is indeed.
Last one here is an example of a ringer. This was the base unit plate (BM 013829) on a particularily dead 'K' registered 3500S with a very low chassis number (48100454A) we were offered a couple of years ago. The car, on the surface, looked to correctly be a 1971/1972 car. A little digging revealed that it was actually a 1974/1975 car. They only actually built 17000 3500S's. The owner wasn't aware and was sold the car by his motor dealer friend! oops!