20 replies to this topic

[rexy]

Probably an unanswerable pair of questions but here goes.

 

How many hatches have plates stamped 12/75 or earlier?

How many pre adr 27A hatches were made?

 

Yours in curiosity!

[Dr Terry]

The number of 12/75 Hatchbacks would be small. These would be pilot builds & press cars.

 

The number of pre-ADR27A Hatchbacks would be much higher. They were being built at full production rates from the end of Christmas 1975 shutdown to 30/6/76.

 

That's around 5 months plus.

 

Dr Terry

[YellowGTR]

Adding to the Curiousity,

 

Sorry I think this may have been mentioned before. I understand the very early hatches had a black engine bay?

Is that correct and if so when was the changover.

 

Also I am going to be looking at a T-Bar auto car but would like to convert it to manual just an M21.

Is there a plate you can remove for the shifter on the floor hump or do you need to cut the floor for the shifter?

[yel327]

Same hole in the floor for all console shift 6cyl and V8. Only the reverse switch wiring needs to be sorted.

 

All LX had black engine bay up to a certain time. My 2/76 was black originally.

[Shiney005]

5-76 had body coloured engine bay.

[dattoman]

My 4/76 also body coloured - before someone changed it from 6 to 8 and changed the body colour too

 

 lhhing.jpg   60.55K   6 downloads

[limo]

Neutral / start wires from T bar joined.

[rexy]

Anyone got a reasonable guess for absolute numbers?

[yel327]

Lots. Remember GMH built bulk lots of cars right at the start of a new Series leading up to and just after release so that they had plenty ready for sale.

[rexy]

They must be hiding along with all the L31 plated toranas.

 

I have seen hardly any pre ADR 27a hatches in the last 15 years at the various events I’ve been to. Only ever seen two 75 plated hatches.

[yel327]

I looked at heaps back in the late 80’s when I bought mine, I specifically wanted a pre ADR27A one as I wanted to put a SBC in it. Lots of them around back then. There will be more ADR27A examples as those ran for a lot longer plus there were Sunbirds introduced after ADR27A came in. But you are talking all of Feb-May 1976 production which is a lot of LX. Plus the early build stuff prior to February 1976.

[Bazza]

Hi

 

My '76 plated SS 5.0L manual hatch had body colour in the engine bay, and apparently it had been sitting on the lot unsold for some time. It was definitely pre RTS also.

 

Bazza

[308 Sunbird]

If I remember correctly we've narrowed this down before on here- change from black to body colour

engine bays was approx late March early April 76.

[yel327]

Probably co-incides with when HX restricted production began.

[Shiney005]

Anyone got a reasonable guess for absolute numbers?

Out of the first 50 sets of LX numbers I have, 7 of them are from cars built before April 1976. Obviously this is from a very random selection.

[yel327]

Given the published Press release for LX was dated 24th February 1976 for afternoon newspaper and television and the proper Press participation release was 23rd February in Adelaide you'd imagine there was plenty of cars built ready for sale by these dates. The scheduled unveiling of the SL and SS Hatchbacks was at 6.30pm on 23rd at the Colonial Restaurant at Glen Osmond prior to dinner in the Caroline room. The Press drive day was 24th February where they drove the cars from Colonial Restaurant to Seaview Winery.

 

The Press Fleet cars were built between mid December 1975 and the end of January 1976. There is 13 hatchbacks listed in the Press Fleet and 12 for the convention with what appears to be 2 crossover from the convention to the Press Fleet. So that means 23 in that lot alone, let alone all the regular production cars built in between them. The crossover cars are either the WA or the SA Press Fleet car in 1916-65Y L31 M40 SS (same spec for both either rego SRL-205 or SRL-220), the other is the Victorian SL in 1918-18X, L20 M20 rego SRL-209 

[hanra]

What month 76?

[Bigfella237]

I'm sure we've been through this before with the engine bay colours and there was a pretty big overlap of a couple of months where some cars got colour while others were still satin black.

 

Given that all (production) LX's came out of the same factory and I assume where all painted on the same line, I have no idea why one car's engine bay would get painted colour and the next car not, unless there was a huge stockpile of painted shells somewhere which weren't picked in order (some colours more popular than others)?

[yel327]

Thinking further I reckon they’ll be black up until LH production is complete. Then colour. Maybe.

Torana engine bay will have been painted in the body plant as that is how Dandenong did it. Bodies would have been painted, hard trimmed and sealed. They’d have their BODY tag and chassis number already, and the engine bay painted (over the tag and the chassis number). Front panels should have been painted with the car and sent to the assembly plant to re-unite with the car.
My 2/76 hatchback was black engine bay. I’ll find it’s PSN by its engine number as I have it and the chassis number. It was Royal Plum with slate black vinyl trim, 3.3 auto SL with N67 rims.