It's just not clear.

[Aristotle]

Idle Sunday musings about all things Triumph.

Spit's in the garage and unlikely to come out again till (if we ever do) have the roads dry up.

In the meantime in deference to it's new status as "much favoured object" and to do something I've been meaning to do for - well forever - I've been nailing and screwing neoprene rubber strips to all those gaps which exist around the margins of ancient Henderson garage up and over doors - to keep this my latest Triumph away from the "Winter Wynd".

I say this is my latest Triumph cos the last (and first one) one was - - oooh, something like 50 odd years ago and as the Bard would have it "there's the rub".

Does she still exist ?

My memories are of a delightful means of transport, easy acceleration, not mega fast by any means (my mate had a an early 3.8 E Type which I could borrow, strewth was that quick) but just a lovely pootling car, hood down in the summer sunshine which in the event you wanted to overtake (in the traffic of those days) would get a move on.

She was a 1600 drophead Vitesse in a rather lovely - what I would call powder blue. 

I courted my wife in her, we both drove and she (both car and wife) were lovely.    

So Sunday musing led me to - - - don't I have a photo somewhere and if I can get a shot of the Reg Plate those nice folk who record MOT's might be able to tell me if the dear old Vitesse is still around.

I ask you to imagine going through your own family archive till after what seems like eons has passed you come across the only surviving record of said object - - and B - - - er me all the B - - - dy reg can't be read !

All cannot be lost though there may be folk who have expertise on modern "technically" stuff which can discern what lies beneath an old image.

Chap's (and Chapesses) is there anyone out there with miracle cure tech and ability who can tell me the reg no of my old Vitesse from the photo.

Your's Aristotle.  

ps, I am the callow youth in the photo - I still have the beard but it's a touch whiter.

 

[PeteH]

Hi

Sorry tried my anchient copy of photoshop best I can do is **9*VC. Is that any help? there is grass covering some of the plate

Pete

[dougbgt6]

12 hours ago, Aristotle said:

In the meantime in deference to it's new status as "much favoured object" and to do something I've been meaning to do for - well forever - I've been nailing and screwing neoprene rubber strips to all those gaps which exist around the margins of ancient Henderson garage up and over doors - to keep this my latest Triumph away from the "Winter Wynd".

My next door neighbour did this to his up and over doors. When he re-entered his garage in the Spring his entire collection of Star Wars memorabilia was ruined, turned to mush. You gotta have air circulating on memorabilia and cars.

You got the same jumper as me, I knew we had something in common!

Doug

[Colin Lindsay]

Managed to get some kind of resolution on it, appears to be **D 691 C...

[JohnD]

5 hours ago, Colin Lindsay said:

Managed to get some kind of resolution on it, appears to be **D 691 C...

That's easy then, only 676 possibilities! 

[Josef]

Aristotle, if you have a suspicion, or memory, of where the car started life you can perhaps narrow the field of possibilities to a more likely set of letters. The letters on the plate are a ‘random’ one and two representing the registration office. However, the first letter is not random, and the sequences are known. For example my parent’s first car, a a VW Beetle was VRS516L. Looking up RS https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/registrations/rs.htm we can see that VRS—-L was issued from sept 72, followed by W, X, and YRS—-L before the reg year changed. So if you know the reg district you may be able to infer both the missing letters, or at least smaller number of options. Even checking through all  AD, BD, CD etc wouldn’t be a massive amount of effort. 

[Aristotle]

On 06/11/2023 at 09:56, Colin Lindsay said:

Managed to get some kind of resolution on it, appears to be **D 691 C...

To come clean - I had a fiddle with the Microsoft thingy in W11 and came to the same conclusion **D 691C, couldn't be sure though that my old eye's were deceiving me as not as clear as your picture.

There does appear to be a partial image of the letter before D but not sufficient to determine exactly what it is

Thank you.

 

[Aristotle]

18 hours ago, Josef said:

Aristotle, if you have a suspicion, or memory, of where the car started life you can perhaps narrow the field of possibilities to a more likely set of letters. The letters on the plate are a ‘random’ one and two representing the registration office. However, the first letter is not random, and the sequences are known. For example my parent’s first car, a a VW Beetle was VRS516L. Looking up RS https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/registrations/rs.htm we can see that VRS—-L was issued from sept 72, followed by W, X, and YRS—-L before the reg year changed. So if you know the reg district you may be able to infer both the missing letters, or at least smaller number of options. Even checking through all  AD, BD, CD etc wouldn’t be a massive amount of effort. 

Josef, thank you for the link which is most useful.

The little research I'd done told me that D is part of the location code and ideally I needed the preceding letter to narrow it down, which would make running through the alphabet for the first letter relatively easy.

Must say didn't know what the first letter defined - so your explanation is again most useful.

Whilst I can't define what the first letter of the location is - the partial image (if I can believe it) does rule out some letters.

Using your link and the partial image I've narrowed it down to 15 possibilities for that second letter, so I'll start from there and as you say it's not a mind blowing exercise.

Perhaps if you or anyone else can answer another question please.

Lot's of cars from this era have been scrapped, does the registration number stay on file so the record of it being scrapped can be found ?

 

[Josef]

12 minutes ago, Aristotle said:

Lot's of cars from this era have been scrapped, does the registration number stay on file so the record of it being scrapped can be found ?

It’s only recently (late 2000s I think?) that the DVLA obliged owners to inform them if a vehicle has been scrapped, so it is quite likely that if you enter the possible registrations into the online MoT check service that you’ll see a result. 

[Aristotle]

3 hours ago, Josef said:

It’s only recently (late 2000s I think?) that the DVLA obliged owners to inform them if a vehicle has been scrapped, so it is quite likely that if you enter the possible registrations into the online MoT check service that you’ll see a result. 

Thank you.

[dougbgt6]

There are list of location codes, my reg starts GDG, the location code being DG which I think was  Gloucestershire. So it would be good to know where you lived when you bought the car. But be careful everything changed in 2001 and some lists are confused as to what's what.

Doug

[Aristotle]

Much key tapping later on the Gov MOT record site - - - annnd nothing, except, 3 Moggie Minors, 1 Rover Mini, 1 Riley Elf, 1 Vauxhall Viva and a partridge in a pear tree.

All of which had the final **D691C in their reg's.

Pretty sure now the Vitesse's reg was something, something, D691C as got the old trusty scanner out of the loft and found I could manipulate the image here and there most notably the back light and got the clearer image below - isn't technology wonderful.

Unfortunately the blasted hedge still gets in the way so having exhausted my efforts to reveal her finer points, dropping the final veil so to speak and exhaustive searching for Dear Heart on the web - - - I'm calling it quits.

She is probably now a fair number of spoons or some such anyway.

What a waste of time - I hear some cry, not so I would say, you always learn something as you go along and it filled in a bit of time between now and shuffling off this mortal coil. 

Back to projects, all things Spitfire - see thread in bodywork forum.

Many thanks to all.

Yours Aristotle.