All about the “L”, Part 2

You may not remember that I had a chance to buy AN5L 501 in about 2012. At that time, the car was a basket case. It was also located in California, so I was not able to physically inspect it, nor did I have an abundance of photographs. There was also an additional anomaly… the number plate. The vin plate pictured above read “AN5 501.” But left-hand drive cars for export were all supposed to include an “L”(for left-hand drive) after the AN5.

This car was stamped as if it was a right-hand drive car, yet it was configured as a left-hand drive car. All documentation stated that the first production Frogeye was built for the USA market, so there should’ve been an “L” stamped into the number plate. Everything else (that I could see) checked-out on the car, but this numbering issue was unsettling, especially once I factored in the magnitude of work that lay ahead and the (at the time) outrageous price that was being requested for such a rough car; so I passed. (See my prior post about the number plate by clicking here.)

The car as it appeared in 2012. There was no inkling of the history this Bugeye held.

I’ve personally handled perhaps 500 bugeyes in these intervening ten years, and my confidence and familiarity with Sprite numbering systems has dramatically increased since that day in 2012 when I declined to increase my offer to purchase 501.

So what about that L?

This week, we received the new heritage certificate for the car, and it spells it out quite clearly what happened in the case of this car. Apparently, the factory workers that built 501 are fallible just like the rest of us. According to the Heritage Trust, the failure to stamp an L on this car’s number plate was an error. The worker in charge of stamping chassis plates simply goofed.

Now, everything is right in terms of the paperwork surrounding 501. This car, with or without an L on the number plate, is, in fact, the first production Sprite, and we now have a document that proves it. This is one more piece of the puzzle that we needed to have in order before we head to Pennsylvania in September for Concours judging in our quest for gold!

Classic British cars sometimes come with numbering errors.

501 is still somewhere between Cartegena and Connecticut. While all we have at this moment is the T shirt, (click here if you would like one) hopefully the actual car is now just a few weeks away!