DVLA TR7 V8 Records & conundrum.

[Howard]

As some of you will know I have acquired the late Paul Derbyshire's blue TR7 V8. The car came with very limited history so I took the plunge and sent off an inquiry to the DVLA along with the necessary payment. All I was expecting the get back was a date when the engine was changed to 3.5 L and after waiting three months I had given up hope of hearing anything.

Today a package dropped through my letter box which has raised more questions than answers. The enclosed redacted documents show that the car originally had a different registration number - OOB 253X - and was first registered to BL Cars MCP/EPC department in July 1982. At the time it was Grey. The next document shows that by 1992 the registration number had been changed to DBG916X & the colour changed to beige. The final document shows that by 2008 the engine had been changed the Rover V8.

Does anyone know what the BL MPC/EPC department did & any suggestions why the number might have been changed? Numbers including 8OOB are banned by the DVLA but OOB doesn't fall into this catoegory

Cheers

Howard

[Howard]

I forgot to add that the DVLA apologized that their records are incomplete/missing/corrupted so am unlikely to be able to get anything more from them.

H

[Amy Wade]

Some of that information is very interesting to me, I bought a TR7 reg number OOB451X a few months ago. It's been off the road since 1986, buried under rubbish in a hoarder's house. The V5 says it's grey and the car is actually hearing aid beige, it was clearly a full strip down to do the paint job, everything had been removed before painting. It seems strange 2 cars with very close registrations should have had the same colour change. Maybe mine was also registered to the MPC/EPC department (whatever that was) & they did that to all their cars.

[Howard]

I may be able to throw some light on the original colour. The original application for registration by BL is almost illegible but recorded it as "Champagne" which is classified as a Beige (which matches your description and a visible area in my car) but the DVLA V5 registration document listed it incorrectly as Grey.

I suspect someone in the DVLA got their colours wrong and this was subsequently corrected.

 

 

[Amy Wade]

I've been trying all sorts of acronyms & the most likely I've came up with are management pool car/employee pool car. Hopefully someone will say it's something more exciting. 

[shenderson]

I worked at Rovergroup (or whatever it was called at the time) during the early and mid-90s.  There was a scheme called Management Car Plan (or something similar) by which employees who had reached a certain level of seniority could lease a car.  This was extended to employees at less senior levels (Employee Car Plan perhaps).  Those that reached the dizzying heights of Director got a free car (typically Range Rover) with their employment package.

Therefore it is possible that MCP/ECP refers to cars supplied under these schemes (although the EPC acronym does not match).  They would be standard production models rather than pre-production or prototypes.

[Howard]

You are probably correct - the quality of the microfilmed copy is very poor and difficult to read. It was clearly one of the last to leave BL stock, being registered by them in July 82.