Was rummaging around some of the Vehicle Detail sites the other day.

My Cabbie was registered 10/3/98, but what I found more interesting was it was manufactured 31/12/97.

I know its nothing unusual for vehicles to sit around for months between manufacture & sale. What I'm interested in is trying to narrow down the time it actually rolled off the production line. Are there any such records of completion times ?

It would be a nice fact to know if it was possibly the last Cabriolet off the line in1997.

Also, were there specific lines at the factory for saloon, coupe, cabriolet etc, or were the vehicles just assembled on one line ?

Interested to know more about that - would my car be on it? One of the last registered SEi’s on the road (1996). Most other SEi’s on the road date from 1995.

Kriss707 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 8:52 pm Was rummaging around some of the Vehicle Detail sites the other day.

My Cabbie was registered 10/3/98, but what I found more interesting was it was manufactured 31/12/97.

I know its nothing unusual for vehicles to sit around for months between manufacture & sale. What I'm interested in is trying to narrow down the time it actually rolled off the production line. Are there any such records of completion times ?

It would be a nice fact to know if it was possibly the last Cabriolet off the line in1997.

Also, were there specific lines at the factory for saloon, coupe, cabriolet etc, or were the vehicles just assembled on one line ?

Jeremy, aka Montegoman, can glean some info from the VIN but we probably can't narrow down dates too well, only build year, which you already have.

Initially, all R8 derivatives were produced on track 2 in Longbridge's CAB1 (Car Assembly Building 1), which was the line that had previously been producing the SD3 200s. With the introduction of HH/R 400 and R3 200 onto CAB1's tracks 3 and 2 respectively, in 1995, the 3 remaining low-volume R8 derivatives - 96MY Cabriolet, Coupe and Tourer - were moved 'next-door' to CAB 2 and produced alongside MG F on the re-facilitised track. CAB 2 had not produced cars for some time at this point

Mini and Metro were moved together onto track 1 in CAB 1 to allow HH/R and R3 to have a line each, due to the expected volume increase over R8. Track 2 having already reached capacity, running at 1-a-minute for most of SD3's- and all of R8's- production life. Unfortunately, this expected increase did not happen and the rest is history...

Thank you, that's very informative.

Another question, am I right in assuming that the Chassis numbers run R8 production start to finish, irrespective of variant, as my build number 927719 & I don't think there were that many Cabriolet produced

My LHD 214 cabby number is 016010 and sold in Paris on the 23rd of August 1994.
I'm very interested in narrowing the issue from the lines on track 2 in Longbridge's CAB1.
Whatever information will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Any of us could give number & date to build a database, or is it useless?