A question for the list:
I've always assumed that the 1969 Sprite Mk. IV (like mine)
was the last year for Sprites in the U.S. Anybody out there
driving a 1970 Sprite? (By out there, I mean the U.S. - I
know that in the U.K. the Sprite soldiered on until 1971,
when it wasn't even a Healey, just an Austin Sprite - what
was BMC thinking?)
But here's some confusion: I've got the Lindsay Porter
restoration book, in which he says (and I quote): "Two years
after launching the 1275cc Mk. IV Sprite/Mk. III Midget, no
more Sprites were shipped to the United States...In the same
year of 1968, Midgets and British Sprites were changed to
negative earth electrics, though still with dynamo and a few
other relatively minor changes made including the
substitution of a cross-flow radiator."
O.K., that's my car: negative ground, generator (dynamo) and
cross-flow radiator; bought new in August of 1969 as a 1969
Mk. IV. Yet Porter says that in 1968 (or at some point in
the year) no more Sprites were shipped to the U.S.
According to him, the next change was black sills and
Rostyle wheels, in October of 1969, which I'm assuming means
1970 U.S. Midgets (no more Sprites, remember?).
What I get from this is that although there were lots of
1969 Mk. IV Sprites sold in the U.S., not a single one of
them was actually manufactured in 1969 - all were 1968
built, and probably delivered in 1968. I think I read
somewhere that it was legal for a dealer to sell a
1968-manufactured car as a 1969 as long as it was
*identical* to a 1969-manufactured car. In other words, if a
dealer had 1968 cars in inventory that hadn't sold by the
1969 model year, he could advertise and sell them as 1969
models
Well, this should be fun to chew on for a while. I have a
Heritage certificate on order; perhaps that will shed some
light when it arrives. Anyone out there have a '69 Mk. IV
with a certificate?
Go, gang!
Jim Algar
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