4 door, smoke grey, 1962? Stolen 5 years ago?

[Phil-tq]

Strange story this. About 5 years ago I bought an F reg 4dr smoke grey from the Weston super Mare area. (That's Somerset) Car was taxed but the Mot had run out months before. Seemed a good candidate for a new test with maybe a few bits to do but no major corrosion. Not the tidiest, but a cheap run around.

Well, one job led to another, my enthusiasm waned a bit and the car stayed in the garage. A friend of mine saw it recently and commented on the windscreen wiper configuration being wrong for a 67 car. The blades meet in the middle which finished early 60s. When I bought it there was a fairly new wiper motor on it but the blades went all over the place. I had assumed that someone had fitted a motor for another car and replaced it with one which I had taken off a Minor I had broken. Maybe the motor had been right for a 67 car?

The car had come with the usual box of spares in the boot. The stuff that everyone nicked from cars they found in scrapyards 15 years ago. In the bottom of the box, tucked under the flap, was a chassis plate. Another souvenir I guessed and luckily I kept it too. When the question was raised about wiper configuration, it got me wondering. Had the identity been swapped and the plate I had found been the original?

Luckily the body plate that is high up on the passenger side was still in place and legible. I wrote to BMIHT at Gaydon and asked them to confirm that the body number corresponded to the F reg. If not, could they check it against the plate I had found. Guess what? The plate in the box is the real one and dates to around 62. It is also for a 4dr in smoke grey!

So, being the upstanding citizen that I am, I decided to come clean. Prepare to be amazed at the apathy!

I spoke to a retired policeman I know and he suggested I phone the local Vehicle Unit known as C10. The central switchboard had never heard of C10 and put me through to someone else. They really weren't interested, couldn't do a search and told me to contact Swansea.

I phoned Swansea and spent a long time selecting options which went round in circles, frustrated me and probably made them a fortune from the premium rate number. Eventually I spoke to a real person and explained. She couldn't do a search either and told me to write in.

I wrote a long letter describing everything and even said I realised there was a chance I was sitting on a stolen vehicle. I sat back and every day expected to be visited by armed police and to be arrested on suspicion of vehicle theft. Nothing. I gave it 2 weeks and phoned again. Pressed buttons for 10 minutes, emptied my bank account and suddenly got a real person. "Yes we've got your letter and we will reply within 4 weeks"!!!!!!!!! No hurry then.

The letter arrived yesterday which was beyond the 4 week period, but dated a week ago which gets around that problem.
Apparently having deliberated for 4 weeks, they conclude that the chassis number for the F reg is correct as that is what was declared when it was registered and the wipers were probably changed at some time in the past. Stroll on! Can you believe these people? Totally misunderstood my letter.

The good news was that there was a direct number, so I phoned it. Spoke to a nice man who explained that the girl that had dealt with "the case" was away. He read the file and phoned me back. Still not convinced but said he would look at it again.

After lunch I looked through the info I had on the car. When I got it I had contacted as many previous owners as I could hoping to get old photos, mots etc. No luck, but one guy had said that he had scrapped it. The next owner had bought it from the same scrap yard in 2000/2001. You thinking what I'm thinking?

Phoned Swansea again to give them this gem and spoke to another guy. He looked at the file and couldn't get excited. No, I was wrong, 2 vehicles cant have the same chassis number and they already a tractor listed which had the chassis number I was quoting. I pointed out the tractor was not a Morris though and according to the Morris factory records, a Minor with that very number WAS built, but it was when DVLA was still a field. The fact that they did not have a record, did not mean it did not exist. He got that, sort of, and relented to arrange an inspection.

So dear reader. Can you enlighten me? DVLA do not have a record of it being stolen (but that doesn't mean it wasn't). I'm guessing around 2000 or so the identity was swapped. Was the car found in a garage somewhere with no paperwork and so an identity was bought from the scrapyard?

Or is this your smoke grey 4dr that was stolen? I won't quote the chassis number here, but if you contact me with a reg number and details I'll get Swansea to check it out.

[Dean]

Thank you for sharing and good on you for doing the decent thing.. perhaps the recently announced public sector cuts are the reason for the apathy? I'm sure someone will be along who may be able to advise further.

[ASL642]

Have you tried contacting the MMOC office in Derby 01332 291675. They have a list of member's cars (maybe chassis numbers)?

[rayofleamington]

When you get towards an end result I'm sure this would warrant a magazine article! I expect the rest of the club would like to be enlightened on how hard it is to find out if your wrongly registered car has been previously stolen.

I bought a ~69 Landrover that came with some spares including lots of paperwork and ID from a 74... I did a bit of checking and the vehicle was definately not the 74 one! Whether it actually was the 69 one was something I never got to the bottom of but that's all water under the bridge now.


I have tried in the past to report the ID's of chassis plates ahnd V5's being sold on ebay. I got the same run-around from DVLA and police and ended up just printing the details and posting it to DVLA, asking that they put the ID up for immediate VIC check if anyone tried to use the Reg number, as it was going to be fraudulent. I got the reply I was expecting (nothing).

[MarkyB]

So do you know the registration that goes with the original chassis number?
I'd be asking about that rather than the chassis number, especially to the police, but you could search the DVLA database with it.
It would have had a paper log book, and unless it got MOTed after they computerised the system then the chassis number won't be in the system.

[DAVIDMCCULLOUGH]

The body shell on a F reg and an older car with clap hands wipers will have several small differences. An F reg should/will have 1 pasenger side glove box with ali dash centre and key start, as well as the newer type of heater and a fresh air ducting. The older one would have pull start, 3 spoke steering wheel, 2 open gloves boxes, small sun visors that cant be held above the door. Lots of little variations that should be easliy spotted.

The correct chassis number is cut into the bulkhead just below the wiring loom or on some later cars is in on the floor below the driver feet though I think this was only the very late cars. Compare this number with the on your chasis plates. The number high up on the passenger side is only a body number and doesnt really concern the tax peoples!

[Phil-tq]

Thanks everyone for your input. Having smelt a rat I had to go ahead and contact the Police and DVLA. I know that if I had had a classic car stolen I would like to think that someone somewhere would do the same.

No I dont know the original reg otherwise that would have been easy to check. There is also the complications of the chassis prefix not necessarily being correct on the DVLA record. The F reg docs show M.A55D when it should be M/AS 5 D.

Check your paperwork everyone and get any mistakes rectified!

What made me laugh was the guy at DVLA telling me that I was wrong because there was already a tractor with that number and no 2 vehicles can have the same number. Think it came as a surpise to hear that I remembered the days when DVLA didn't exist.

I'll contact the club and see if they have anything.



Can I suggest a sticky for the Stolen section? Perhaps posters shouldn't put "Stolen from London" Let's see the car description, we are more likely to remember it and it is easier to find again later.

[LouiseM]

There is also the complications of the chassis prefix not necessarily being correct on the DVLA record. The F reg docs show M.A55D when it should be M/AS 5 D. Check your paperwork everyone and get any mistakes rectified!

I had a similar problem a few years ago caused by the MOT tester entering the wrong chassis number on the computer system. The chassis plate is worn and difficult to read so he got an 's' confused with a '5'. It was easy to get sorted by writing to the DVLA.

Can I suggest a sticky for the Stolen section? Perhaps posters shouldn't put "Stolen from London" Let's see the car description, we are more likely to remember it and it is easier to find again later.

Nice idea but experience has shown that people rarely bother to read stickies. A case in point is the 'for sale' forum where no matter how many times you remind people to post their location and include details of the car in the thread title we are forever having to enter these ourselves! Messages are not regularly posted in the 'stolen' forum - maybe a message a month on average - so it's not a huge problem for the mods to amend the odd post title now and again if necessary. The thread title has limited space so far more useful for people to post a photo of their car and list any distinctive features as not many people will remember a registration number of someone else's car but might remember a photo or something unusual about it. I found a car had had been reported stolen on here and it was the photo that helped me to identify it, not the thread title