Phil,
This is VERY interesting! Your comm. no. is TS1440LO and your BMIHT certificate
says you should have engine no. TS1426E. TR2 through TR3 engine numbers are,
with few exceptions, HIGHER than the comm. no. This is accounted for by the
fact that when Triumph was building the TR2, TR3, 3A, that they were also
supplying production engines for other cars such as the Swallow Doretti, the
Morgan Plus 4, and the Peerless/Warwick. I have TR2 comm. no. TS1436L, and when
I got the car it had with it engine no. TS1632E. I believe that engine TS1632E
is the original engine because the Ca. title I have on the car lists TS1632E as
the VIN no. This was standard practice in Ca. in the '50s and possibly into the
mid '60s to register the car against the engine no. My 57 TR3 and my 54 Swallow
Doretti all use the engine no. as the VIN. I sent for a BMIHT certificate for
my TR2 and it came back with an engine no lower than the comm. no. just as
yours did. I have reason to believe that the info from BMIHT is incorrect in my
case in as much as I have documentation that TS1632E is the correct engine no.
and the engine was with the car. Additionally, BMIHT listed the trim color as
"Blueberry", whereas the interior of the car is in Blackberry and as far as I
can tell is original. I have never seen "Blueberry" listed as a trim color for
TR2 or TR3.
>From what I understand, BMIHT does its record traces from microfilm copies of
>a handwritten record, and that some pages are not too clear. The Triumph
>Register in the UK has access to a separate set of original build records and
>I have intended to contact them and get build data from their records but this
>has been a low priority.
I am not saying categorically that the info on your car, or mine for that
matter, from BMIHT is incorrect, there are enough documented cases of "anomaly"
cars that don't fit the usual patterns that it is entirely possible that the
lower engine no. is correct. Your car has now renewed my interest in this
matter and I think I will have to investigate
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