Gerry Van Vlack wrote:
Does any one know if a buyer could actually special order a TR4A and
wait
for delivery or did you just have the pick of what was available at
the
dealer? Under what circumstances could an "off spec" color combination
be
ordered?
Yes. You could order a car to your specific requirements within
catalogue specs. Sign along the line that was dotted, sit back and
wait. If you were lucky, it took a month for the order to reach
Coventry, two months to schedule and build the car, up to another two
months for it to be shipped to a particular port - so if you saw it
within six months, one counted one's blessings. Usually, it was longer
by about another two months.
Few dealer salesmen were aware of what one could or could not do, so
mostly customers got the car that was available. You could get your
car in two months (just) if it was ordered and paid for in the States
and then collected by you at the factory or in London, driven around
Europe on vacation - and then shipped back at the end of the trip.
This method substantially reduced the US import duty payable on
arrival. One lister did this and still has the car - but I forget who
it was. If anyone has a Heritage Certificate which states the UK
licence number, that would have been a car delivered and used in the
UK/Europe before shipment.
On the colour/trim combos, you could order a non-standard combination
of standard colours for GBP 25 extra and black paint was available -
though rarely featured in the colour charts. Black cars were always
painted on Friday afternoons before the paint lines were cleaned out
over each weekend by the millwrights.
Jonmac
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