Identity crisis

[Gransport Devon]

I have been trying to unearth the first 2 years history of my gransport.
The comprehensive history that accompanied the vehicle begins when it was sold through Greypauls of Nottingham in 2006 with just over 10K on it .
I have established that being a 54 plate means it was part of a shipment of 30 cars that landed in mid Nov 2004 . I reckon Maserati UK had it for some reason , the MC12 that the Stig put around the Top Gear track has a consecutive number to mine ,
WX54UOG/H .
Initial contact with Maserati UK seemed quite promising, I emailed shots of the V5 and the plate in the engine bay .
After a week or so they got back to me , and said that my chassis number did not exist .
Asked for me to submit pictures once more , for the same result .
Last week I was asked to photograph the stamping under the plastic flap in the drivers footwell.
Today I get an email saying the numbers do not match , and the stamping in the footwell is the true identity of the car . Do you know they are right , the B and the C are switched ,
It's the same on the V5 , says C38B , not the C38C , the same as the engine bay plate C38B .
Anybody else experienced this ?

 

[spkennyuk]

Just looking at your pictures. It looks like the Vin plate under the bonnet is that paint damage / bubbles to the right of the Vin plate. Has it possibly been off and miss stamped at some point in its history.

 

[Gransport Devon]

Not in my time , no . I see what you mean though . I got it from Richard Grace , I sent him an email to see what he thought .

 

[bigbob]

I would go for factory error. Anyway the key identifiers are the last five numbers on the VIN.

 

[Oneball]

As Bob said the last numbers are the unique bit to your car. The first bit that’s wrong on the plate is country of origin, manufacturer and type/spec, pretty much every other uk one that year will start the same. Get someone here to have a look at theirs, it’ll be ZAMEC38C

I had a 1995 Ducati that had the wrong vin on the reg doc and all the associated paper work. It wasn’t until an MOT tester noticed it in 2014 that anyone knew there was a discrepancy.

 

[Tallman]

I have been trying to unearth the first 2 years history of my gransport.
The comprehensive history that accompanied the vehicle begins when it was sold through Greypauls of Nottingham in 2006 with just over 10K on it .
I have established that being a 54 plate means it was part of a shipment of 30 cars that landed in mid Nov 2004 . I reckon Maserati UK had it for some reason , the MC12 that the Stig put around the Top Gear track has a consecutive number to mine ,
WX54UOG/H .
Initial contact with Maserati UK seemed quite promising, I emailed shots of the V5 and the plate in the engine bay .
After a week or so they got back to me , and said that my chassis number did not exist .
Asked for me to submit pictures once more , for the same result .
Last week I was asked to photograph the stamping under the plastic flap in the drivers footwell.
Today I get an email saying the numbers do not match , and the stamping in the footwell is the true identity of the car . Do you know they are right , the B and the C are switched ,
It's the same on the V5 , says C38B , not the C38C , the same as the engine bay plate C38B .
Anybody else experienced this ?

Given that it’s on the V5, there is another possibility. It could have originally been registered as C, later in life after someone put the new plate on with the error, the owner might have thought it was a mistake and changed it to B..

So if the plate is original it was a factory error and if not the registration may have been changed to B later in life.

 

[schell70]

I had a Mk1 Lotus Cortina with a similiar issue, for some reason DVLA had a letter wrong, probably when the V5's were updated by hand. It had been restored and a new VIN plate with the DVLA errored VIN was put on. It took me some major digging with the original supplying dealer who believe it or not still had the original sales records 50+yrs on!

WIth the help of the owners club and the evidence from the Ford dealer we got DVLA to change the VIN back to what it should have been. It also meant the value of the car increased as it had always been considered suspect before that.