A brief crawl under the car should enable the inspection of the n/s rear chassis cross-member, looking from the back. Three numbers should be stamped there: C (chassis) E (engine) B (body). The Engine no. is easy to find, the Body no. should be stamped on the transmission tunnel just behind the handbrake cover. If these numbers match then the car is authentic.

That's good to know and it's here in the Association section fig 16 http://archive.a7ca.org/about-the-archive/identifying-your-seven/

Interesting that there is no mention of the body number in the auction blurb, despite the mention of the stencilling of the chassis number. But pre-26, it should thus be the easiest 7 of all to tell whether its wholly authentic or not!

Here is a photo from the '24 car I owned showing a (C) Chassis number, (E) engine number and (B) for the body number but - no number stamped!



I thought this was unusual but I have since seen two more cars that do not have anything stamped next to the 'B", anyone else found similar?

Yes, R - but on most Pramhoods in Oz. All the earliest Chummys sent out here were fitted with Longbridge bodies, so had the Body number stamped into the rear crossmember, but from late 1925 the cars came out in chassis form with floorpan and aluminium scuttle, lights, wings, windscreens etc as per Longbridge. From then on steel tubs and doors to suit the aforementioned were made here for them. These latter cars had a 'B' stamped into the crossmember, but no number. From that I always presumed that the absence of a number signified that the car was sent out to an outside bodybuilder, but David Cochrane advised me his Chummy and at least one other (both with no number) were fitted with original Longbridge tubs. Perhaps we'll never know the answer to the question. Cheers, Bill

Location: Euroa, Australia

You may remember that the chassis in my picture is specifically mentioned in the index cards - referencing that it was not fitted with shock absorbers or a speedo and drive, items I spent years accumulating to make it "correct"!

I knew the B number was missing from later cars but had not seen it on an early chassis like this before. Like you suggest, maybe not answerable...

So presumably those UK cars with unstamped numbers could have been re-allocated and not exported after the original plan was made.

What would be interesting to know on this car is whether there is a space after the B, or a number.

And I presume all longbridge bodies would have been stamped?

My 1925 car (registered in the UK in April of that year) has 'C', 'E' and 'B' stamped on the rear cross-member, but only the 'C' and 'E' have numbers against them - the 'B' is blank. The original standard Chummy body is numbered in the usual way, on the transmission tunnel.

Location: Oxford

My car is stamped
C 10135
E 10135
B

I know of 8 other cars like this, the earliest being C 9136, the latest being C 11423. Several of them are in Australia, which ties in with what Bill has posted. I wondered whether Ruairidh's former car could originally have had a coachbuilt body?

That would certainly explain the lack of body when I found it!

I wonder what it could have been...

When Phil Baildon and I went to look at this car at Chippenham, Phil crawled underneath and confirms that there were 3 numbers stamped on the chassis cross member. Unfortunately, without a deep clean, the Body number could not be read.
However, it was stamped on the transmission tunnel in the usual place and was 5832. As the Chassis was 5882, I would be happy to assume the body was the original one.