Duplicate Chassis Numbers ?

It's quite obvious if you read any books or surf the internet, all RS200's started with the chassis  SFACXXBJ2C??00XXX where XXX is a number 001 to 200.

Up until March 2004 I held the belief that the ?? were always the letters GL but I now know this is not this case. Generally on Ford cars, the last two letters prior to the five digit number are the build month and year. My car has the letters GL in this position as do almost all cars in the database.

I expect the original 6 prototype/pre-production/works cars might well have different letters with the remaining cars all being GL build dates. I have amended the whole website  inserting ?? until I know for sure what that actual car has.

June 2004 - I have spoken to the owner of #010 and he has the letters FE NOT GL,  FORD thought that had been changed to GL like the rest but it left their custody to the new owner with the original FE letters which caused some letters to have to be hurried to the authorities to ensure all went smoothly for the new owner as some documentation marked it as a GL vehicle when it was not !

The prototype #003 has a ED rather than a GL - FE would normally mean a December 1985 build and ED a July 1984, also #012 is FE not GL ! - Chassis #008 was to be letters CF but FORD put GL on it before it was sold.

There are a number of spare parts available for sale with which you could build yourself a "genuine" car, genuine in so much as it is from genuine parts but NOT one of the original 200.

This would be fine if you just registered it with DVLA who would issue you a new chassis number and an index, after all, it would still be an RS 200 and a great car.

but... the value of the newly built car would be greatly increased if it had a "genuine" chassis number so people are having duplicate, or new,  VIN plates made up, (there are loads of companies that will make VIN plates for you) then are then placed on their cars before registering them with DVLA.

DVLA do not apparently check to see if that VIN has been used before, they will just issue you with an index (subject to the rules of registering cars), DVLA also have no way of seeing if that VIN is in use in another country. However, you normally need some kind of manufactures documents to register a car for the first time.

If the person is then selling that built up car purporting it to be one of the original "genuine" first 200 they are committing a criminal offence of Deception - Check  the Theft Act !

I considered taking this site down or removing all chassis number to index number relationships but this will not stop the practise, nor will it make it more difficult, in fact, it will make it harder for a genuine purchaser to find out if what they are buying is real - so, the site remains.

My advice is be VERY careful about your purchase, ask to see previous history, previous tax discs, do a HPI check on it (which won't show duplicate VIN numbers) - and if nothing else RING THE RS OWNERS CLUB and ask to speak to someone from the RS 200 registrar, they know the history of probably every original RS 200, including previous owners, that there ever was.

Bear in mind RS200's do have STAMPED CHASSIS NUMBERS also just like normal cars !

March 2004 - I found an letter from Bob Howe who ran a big part of the RS200 program, his fax is in relation to somebody selling chassis #106 but you can see from "the horses mouth" he states only 146 RS200's were sold, with 4 off these being written off to his knowledge. - This tends to show the VIN Table from Gareth Morris as being somewhere close to the right figures mathematically.

May 2004 - I met Bob Howe today and spend a couple of hours talking gardening and RS200's. From his memory all 200's has the letters GL except for the first 6 prototypes of which he cannot recall but will check his records.

Another interesting point in respect of the rarity of the "Evolution Models", whilst there were only 20 selected from the original 200 there were other cars on those remaining that were made to EVO spec by Fords for sale upon the customers request. - Again, Bob is going to look to see what cars were originally the first 20 EVO models.

Thanks,

Justin Smith