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 Matching Numbers?

 Created by: 7marksofgod
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 Posted: Feb 10, 2021 08:25AM
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Matching numbers means the serial numbers the car came with originally. Having said that its easy enough to buy chassis and engine VIN plates and stamp them with whatever number you want, including originals.

 Posted: Feb 9, 2021 05:55PM
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CA
 Posted: Feb 9, 2021 01:32PM
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I've never seen any suggestion that "matching" numbers means the various numbers are all the same.  The only thing that comes remotely close is the situation with Australian Minis where the body number is somewhere within 500 or so of the chassis number...

(In my world - Little English Cars:) Matching means that that numbers on the car match the original build information.  

(Early) Mini owners are lucky in that the original build records have (largely) survived - and a system has been developed to access this data.  

Many early UK cars have chassis plates that record the serial numbers of various components incorporated into that vehicle.

These are the numbers that match...

Cheers, Ian

 Posted: Feb 9, 2021 03:55AM
 Edited:  Feb 9, 2021 03:58AM
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This matching number fetish nonsense might work for other makes, but is totally inappropriate for the classic mini. 

VIN, body and engine numbers never match each other.

Body shells were made in one place, engines in another, and number tags attached to each.  On the assembly line, engine and body were put together and then a VIN was allocated.

All the numbers increase with time, starting from VIN 101 in 1959.  Several series of engine numbers were used and body numbers were not allocated to begin with.

But you would expect the numbers to be similar-ish.  So VIN 1,000,000 should have a similar engine number and not a number of 500,000.

Some people have managed to work out a chart showing how the numbers change to be able to roughly date a car by VIN, engine, body or FE numbers.

The only occasion when numbers should match is between the car and the paperwork (incl the Heritage Cert).

Hopefully someone in the MG world can comment whether the same is true for the Midget.



Car engines make CO2 and trees absorb CO2. By running your engine you're feeding a tree and helping the environment.

 Posted: Feb 8, 2021 02:37PM
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I bought my first restoration project, a 1965 Midget. For this to be considered a number matching car do the last 5 numbers of the VIN and the last 5 numbers of the engine need to match? And how should these line up with the number inside the driver's door? It seems like a totally different number.