Morris Minor Owners Club

I went by the title as to what year my moggie is, but under the hood is M/A2S5 L 997428. I had thought it was a early 1963, but the production number shows it to be 1962.
I found
1098cc chassis numbers from 990290
(September 17th, 1962) to 1005482

1963
Chassis numbers from 1005483 to 1051385
Could it have been produced in 1962 with a 1963 sale date?
Any idea? or am i reading this wrong

The simple answer to that is "Yes" We have an Oct '61 build date car registered Feb '62.

Thank you,

In the UK, the vehicle registration documents show the 'date of first registration' - In most cases this is used as the 'official' age of the car (e.g. regarding which MOT rules apply).
In very limited cases there are some rules based on manufacture date of the car. If that is an issue, or if the car has been registered abroad prior to UK registration, the manufacture date can be added to the registration paperwork.

The same applies to all uk registered cars and modern cars of course - which is why many car parts places want to know the reg or VIN number. The registration year does not directly tie up to manufacture date, however the parts listings will tie up with manufacture dates. Some cars spend up to a couple of years between manufacture and first use! Anything over a year is very rare but it does happen.

It was quite common 'back in the day' for a car to stand in the dealer's showroom for quite some time (now they can stand in a wet field for months ...) before it was sold to a lucky first owner and subsequently registered. The longer it stood - the better the chance of getting a 'good deal' - especially if a newer model came along in the meantime. It was also common to arrange the transaction during the closing months of the year - with the new car not actually going on the road until 1 January in the new year.

rayofleamington wrote:
The same applies to all uk registered cars and modern cars of course - which is why many car parts places want to know the reg or VIN number. The registration year does not directly tie up to manufacture date, however the parts listings will tie up with manufacture dates. Some cars spend up to a couple of years between manufacture and first use! Anything over a year is very rare but it does happen.

Modern car manufacturing dates can be verified by the 'ORGA' number

My own C6 was built on 08/09/2006 but not registered until September 2007, some C6's stood around even longer, so nothings changed in all these years and there are still fields full of unregistered cars standing around