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I'll try and find out more when I return its charged battery in a week or two. I've had a useful chat with David Mawby and he's told me of a way so find out if the body's as solid as it looks and feels. Like me, he feels that if an interim owner could be found with storage space, that would be a compromise obviously at a reduced price of 10%, until a suitable longterm one can be found. However, as we all appreciate, dictating there future plans for anything is almost impossible. A large part of this car's charm is its almost continuous history with photographic and printed evidence. Apologies for any grumpiness on my behalf, Tony, I'm afraid it looks as if this is part and parcel of growing old, something I'm reluctant to admit!
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If it's around 98.000 it must have been in stock for about a year before being registered ?
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Location: North Wiltshire
Car type: 1927 Chummy, 1926 Top Hat 1938 Big Seven 1/2 a Trials Chummy
My RK is chassis 97927, B695, registered 15/11/29, so yes, for some reason this one was either stored for a long time or was run on another registration number for a year.
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Location: Cheshire
How good is the evidence that first registration was 1931? Sometimes a slip of the pen is perpetuated in the records...
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VX 8768 was the very first registration of Jan 1931.
VX series ended March 31.
Essex.
So an interesting anomoly.
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The evidence is very sound not only in the Buff Logbook but also V5. I must admit that I was told that it was a 1929 Saloon and that tallied with as far as I can remember with adjacent chassis nos but then when the paperwork was found, it produced a very different picture. The only other thing that's slightly odd is the fact that the saloon is referred to 'black and red' but that might be a slip up re. the colour of the car and its interior being red.
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Location: Sherwood Forest
Car type: 1938 Talbot Ten Airline
Both Chassis Number and Car Number (and indeed body style and features) confirm it dates from the latter part of 1929. By then fabric saloons were becoming less popular, and a revised body style (the RG) was introduced in early 1930, so it's entirely possible that it was in a dealer's stock and he was (perhaps initially) reluctant to reduce his price.
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Location: North Wiltshire
Car type: 1927 Chummy, 1926 Top Hat 1938 Big Seven 1/2 a Trials Chummy
Sales were probably buoyant until early 1930, then the Great Depression began to bite and stock was generally much harder to shift.
If you look at production figures from Wyatt, they peak in 1929 (26447) and then fall off in 1930, 31 and 32, flat in 1933, recovering in 1934 and 35.
In the late 'twenties, you could sell anything but in the harder climate of the early 'thirties, the public had learned that a fabric saloon was a waste of money; the body had a very short life of perhaps less than 3-4 years if not garaged. Hence, they are under represented today.
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... but generally still exist in the guise of other car models! (which the body number can sometimes reveal to us)
Even the metal early RL found in the museum in Cumbria is registered about 18 months past making. I guess lower prices were also favouring a cheaper newer model as well the general depressed market.
