Original Supplier ?

[Mark1Peachey]

Hello. I have recently purchased a nice little 61' morris that will be a future project for myself, it has sat in a garage for the last 30 years but is complete and the plan is to restore it over the next couple of years with the intension of competing in the odd hill-climb and doing track days while keeping it useable for the road. From what I can gather of the history of the car it has not passed through that many hands and this leads me on to the question I have for you very knowledgeable people on this forum. Would you say that the sticker found on the bottom dash rail is from the original sale? I appreciate this could be very hard to say for sure but I didn't know if anybody may know of the dealer or be from the Bexhill area back in the day and remember the dealer and how long it was in business. The registration plates denotes a Brighton reg so what do you think?

[Simon776]

A car supplied by T R Page (who were a Morris distributors) I would expect to have an East Sussex registration.

However, most of the 1960's East Sussex registration combinations now come up as Brighton if you do an internet search. What are the letters of the registration?

[mk1]

What a cracking little touch.

Simon is far more knowledgeable about registration information than I am, but I have rarely seen that type of sticker fitted to a car other than by the original main dealer.

[coop12g295]

An old aa handbook is useful for seeing where the car was registered

[mk1]

Or check out this posting in the "Useful Web Links" section of this site.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=19

[guru_1071]

'HC' i guess, same as my bus, that was owned by renown of bexhill

[Mark1Peachey]

I checked out the "Useful Web Links" and now I'm slightly confused, I should point out at this stage that this is not unusual, I had been told that it was a Brighton reg but I'm now not sure. It is a three letter three number format with the letters being VAP

[Mike]

I believe VAP is a Brighton prefix, or even suffix in your case.

As a long term resident I had new vehicles registered with SAP and LAP prefixes so am fairly certain this is the case.

[Mark1Peachey]

I did think that the person that told me would know what they were talking about, works for the DVLA, I'm just pleased that the car I got has got some nice touches on it like the sticker although it does make it difficult when it comes to restoring / recommissioning the car as i don't really want to have a car that is box fresh but more a car that looks like its age if that makes sense.

[Mike]

Whilst of no particular monetary value those sort of touches are rather nice and as you say add to the value or provenance of the vehicle.

With modern technology it may be worth creating a replica of the sticker to keep should the original deteriorate beyond being legible.

[Simon776]

VAP was an East Sussex registration issued between June and July 1961. AP was probably transferred to Brighton in the early 1970's.

[Mark1Peachey]

I take my hat off to you Simon776 you certainly know your stuff as that ties in exactly with the date of first registration.