invacar LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...

[LightBulbFun]

2 minutes ago, plasticvandan said:

Yes,that was the last one in service.

mr lbf,don't know if you've already come across this reg series,but here's a pic of one used by a friend of my Aunts,was used quite near the end,I think the pics were taken in 2002,I believe at the time she told me there were around 18 left in use or something like.Its got an Invacar badge on the front.

 

 

very cool not seen that picture before  , curious that it had an Invacar badge on the front, as its an AC Model 70, also rather curiously comes up as "AC 70" on the DVLA I have seen a couple other AC Model 70's show up as such, but its not common at all

also Almost snap!

 

@Mrs6C Model 70 is also a close relative, OPH868R

[plasticvandan]

You won't have seen that pic before,my aunt took it from her wheelchair! I have a load more she took of it for me,but they need scanning in really

[LightBulbFun]

Oops! LOL

 

it was playing ball for most of today, but now its back to its old broken tricks (worth noting that when it is playing ball it will only do so if the vehicle was recently taxed or so, not quite figured out the cut off point, but I cant look up any 2003-2004 Model 70's for example nor can I pull up JHJ548N)

sadly it does not report on any keeper details at all for the NI Model 70's but it did tell me their engine numbers and WOI654's engine number matches with whats on its VIN plate  (and i also grabbed the engine numbers for the other NI Model 70's I know of)

I think YVX206Ls keeper details weirdness are a result of something else rather then it actually not having a keeper change since it was made, as 1940PE an AC Acedes that is also not taxed for on road use also reports 0 keeper changes and last keeper change being the same as its date of first registration 

[MorrisItalSLX]

May I just interject here to congratulate you on 2000 posts in this thread. Your efforts towards the Model 70 are most notable and are nothing short of tremendous.

[LightBulbFun]

9 minutes ago, MorrisItalSLX said:

May I just interject here to congratulate you on 2000 posts in this thread. Your efforts towards the Model 70 are most notable and are nothing short of tremendous.

Hah cool I didn't notice that  thanks, yeah im quite pleased with myself if im allowed to say so with what I have managed to do for invacars, they are fascinating vehicles where there's sadly hardly any information out there about them and im proud to say on this forum at least I have managed to change that somewhat   

for example at the start of this thread it was Thought private Model 70's weren't a thing, but here we are a year later and I freaking own one  

but there's still a lot to learn and discover

also yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of this thread! 

I do still plan to go hunt around for that Model 70 once I get REV451R on the road! (because yes it still bugs me as to what happened to that Model 70 LOL)

at least telling people what im looking for will be easy

"whats this car your looking for around here look like then?"

 "it looks exactly like what im driving!"  

(im also coming up to 3000 posts myself  )

also so much for invacars being "just a phase" well its been a year and this thread aint slowing down any!

[LightBulbFun]

just got through the NVW-P block, I realised I never actually did that one, probably because at the time I had more important blocks to look up etc

but while I have access to a site that can at least pull Invacar chassis numbers I figured I should go round double check all the pictures etc I have incase theres any from my early days whos blocks I have not done yet  

if it sounds familiar because NVW213P features in this Model 70 brochure  (I do wonder where exactly this came from...)

its from NVW155P to NVW254P, 3 survived into chassis number look up range

(as a side note im thinking of kindly emailing the whomademybike guys and seeing if they can fix their reg to Vin number thingy so it works with AC model 70's as I mentioned before it does not seem to like any vehicle whos chassis number is less then 5 digits and sadly most AC Model 70's have VIN numbers that are less then 5 digit so it always throws an error regardless of if said vehicle was last taxed in 2003 or not)

[LightBulbFun]

Woo! 3000 posts  

I sadly dont have a montage of Model 70's to post like when I hit 2K posts, but your welcome to check out the survivors list on Page 24 if you want a montage of 41 different Model 70's 

but I do have some good news in that I was just checking me Facebook just now and I see Simon of the ICR and his assistant? Kathryn have sent me a couple messages last week in good spirits offering to talk to me about my enthusiasm for the Invacar and the research that I have done

so I have just message them back now hopefully I hear back and, hopefully this a sign of good things to come!

(sadly I think because they are not on my friends list, facebook did not actually notify me that I had been messaged, so it was only when I was checking something else did I notice they had messaged me)

[LightBulbFun]

peek-a-boo!

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/24555083@N08/3332694261

 

also a new Model 70 reg block that I dont have documented for me to go through  

 

also at 4:56, someone forgot to let the gearbox spin down!

VTW-L, will figure out where it starts and ended, and go through it for chassis numbers  

one of the last Model 70's on white on black plates too

which means TWC would of had white on black plates originally too, sorry! @dollywobbler

(I had seen period AC Model 70 on white on black L plates but not an invacar until now)

[LightBulbFun]

block is VTW701L-VTW800L sadly none survived into VIN look up range but looking at my lists 

its somewhere between the TWC-K and WHK-L blocks,

(as a side note there should also be a block starting with U in there somewhere as well)

found another "Bronze" one tho LOL

 

[LightBulbFun]

Just got off the phone with Simon of the ICR

I think the conversation went well  

the issue with the ICR is simon wants to grow and has been growing the ICR as more than just a car register, simon has been wanting to explore the social history of disable stuff and the broader history of disabled people in general etc

 but I think the problem is while he has been doing that its sort of caused the actual car register bit to wither on the vine so to speak

and speaking to simon he wants to get me involved officially with the ICR

which im fully in support of, if I can get my foot in the door and and be the person that handle all the car club bits of "yes your Q-plate Model 70 is actually MPH759P fill out the V62 like so and send it off to the DVLA" and be there to support actual invacar owners, while simon does his social history bits and whatnot then that would be perfect for me

Simon said he will call me in september and talk a bit more in depth about that, hopefully see about getting me up to see the collection which I look forward too very much  

I did talk to Simon about OYP595, he actually thought that someone had transferred the registration number "OYP595" onto that Model 70 (like how MPD553P is VAV1L currently) but he said he thought someone did it for tax reasons? (never mind that transferring registrations around does  not affect the tax rate of a vehicle)

I had to tell him no, its literally the registration of an AC petite, as in as far the DVLA is concerned its an AC Petite LOL

and I told him it was probably done back when the Government Model 70's where very much a grey item

 

so yeah all in all pretty positive and hopefully things will go well and I can get my foot in the door, as this sort thing is right up my ally

 

[egg]

That's very good news. I really hope something comes of this. If it does, I think that will be good for Invacars in general, and probably me personally in my own MK12 project.

[somewhatfoolish]

A blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance of an invalid carriage, possibly a very early model 70, in this nostalgia programme about scottish news of 1971; it's about 9-10 minutes in. 

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, egg said:

That's very good news. I really hope something comes of this. If it does, I think that will be good for Invacars in general, and probably me personally in my own MK12 project.

indeed hopefully! 

18 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

A blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance of an invalid carriage, possibly a very early model 70, in this nostalgia programme about scottish news of 1971; it's about 9-10 minutes in. 

Ohh thanks for the heads up  im pretty sure its an AC Acedes Mk14-15 (DHSS Model 67)

 

the AC Acedes Mk14-15 is where the Model 70 gets its overall body design from  but note the lack of rear wheel arch flares on the AC Acedes, its an easy way to tell them apart from a Model 70

[LightBulbFun]

heres a head scratcher for tonight I noticed that the BPU-L and NNO-M blocks are only 101 cars apart, yet unless the alphabet was different in 1973 are alphabetically way apart

I wonder what the deal is there?, sadly I don't know what the reg block of cars is in between the 2

I know the AOO-L and BPU-L blocks are both usually short at 45 and 35 cars respectively, so I do wonder if from AOO-L  to NNO-M it's just a scatter shot of unusual short blocks of Invacar Model 70's for some reason? because C D E F G H J K L M are all missing, but that would only leave 10 cars per letter

maybe Invacar jumped ahead because of the change from L suffix to M suffix however no such jump happens elsewhere when changing suffixes (apart from in 1974 when the whole centralisation thing happened)

[ZombiePaul]

On 8/14/2019 at 11:45 AM, LightBulbFun said:

Oh Cool! do you remember much about your pedal trike?

from what little info there is out there on these things, the last "hand propelled" Tricycles was the Model 33 produced by harding until 1978 ending production about when the Model 70 also ended production

http://rumcars.org/forum/index.php?topic=4147.msg31492#msg31492

I do, it was one of these, they were issued by the local wheelchair service, or community equipment service.

https://www.pashley.co.uk/bikes/tricycles/picador.php

[LightBulbFun]

Interesting, did it have a DHSS Model No? I know things like wheelchairs etc got them im pretty sure

so If that was issued by the DHSS then I imagine it may have had something 

[Christine]

18 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

heres a head scratcher for tonight I noticed that the BPU-L and NNO-M blocks are only 101 cars apart, yet unless the alphabet was different in 1973 are alphabetically way apart

I wonder what the deal is there?, sadly I don't know what the reg block of cars is in between the 2

I know the AOO-L and BPU-L blocks are both usually short at 45 and 35 cars respectively, so I do wonder if from AOO-L  to NNO-M it's just a scatter shot of unusual short blocks of Invacar Model 70's for some reason? because C D E F G H J K L M are all missing, but that would only leave 10 cars per letter

maybe Invacar jumped ahead because of the change from L suffix to M suffix however no such jump happens elsewhere when changing suffixes (apart from in 1974 when the whole centralisation thing happenedt

The 3 day week ?

[LightBulbFun]

Just now, Christine said:

The 3 day week ?

thats a very good point

im not actually sure how Britain imploading in the 1970s affected AC/Invacar production exactly,

however the weird alphabetical jump happens between July-September 1973 so thats before the 3 day week thing I think

looking online July 31st 1973 was the last day of the L plate with the 1st august 1973 being the first of the M plates

maybe for whatever reason Invacar did jump ahead alphabetically (however as mentioned theres 101 Model 70's between the end of the BPU-L block and the start of the NNO-M block so it will be interesting to find out what the reg block(s) of those 101 cars is)

[ZombiePaul]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

Interesting, did it have a DHSS Model No? I know things like wheelchairs etc got them im pretty sure

so If that was issued by the DHSS then I imagine it may have had something 

If it did, I can't remember it, and I had 3 of them!

Wheelchairs in my local area are tagged with a yellow plastic ziptie with a number stamped on them, 

[busmansholiday]

20 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

heres a head scratcher for tonight I noticed that the BPU-L and NNO-M blocks are only 101 cars apart, yet unless the alphabet was different in 1973 are alphabetically way apart

I wonder what the deal is there?, sadly I don't know what the reg block of cars is in between the 2

I know the AOO-L and BPU-L blocks are both usually short at 45 and 35 cars respectively, so I do wonder if from AOO-L  to NNO-M it's just a scatter shot of unusual short blocks of Invacar Model 70's for some reason? because C D E F G H J K L M are all missing, but that would only leave 10 cars per letter

maybe Invacar jumped ahead because of the change from L suffix to M suffix however no such jump happens elsewhere when changing suffixes (apart from in 1974 when the whole centralisation thing happened)

What was the exact date that AOO-L, BPU-L and NOO-M were issued. I'm just wondering because technically, AOO / BPU could have been issued in September 1972 and NOO in July 1974 which would explain the gap. Wasn't this when the government were looking initially at ending Invacar production anyway and things were certainly not rosy in the garden in the UK at that point in time as the three day week came in in late 1973. 

Regular power cuts, queues for petrol etc, I can remember it all.

[LightBulbFun]

16-19 July 1973 for BPU-L I think (with Invacar Model 70's the date of first registrations tend to not be in order of the registrations/chassis numbers themselves)

and NNO-L is 7th september (heh )  to 21st Sept 1973 

however I have been informed of the NEV-M block from NEV201M to NEV300M which fills in the hole, but sadly its not known exactly why they jumped to N from B

(I wonder if it was a regional thing, did the Essex office themselves jump from B to N when moving to the M suffix?)

the NEV-M block is from Aug 1st to sept 5th so clearly the first M reg Invacars cars

(Il go through the NEV-M block and see what chassis numbers I can pull soon to confirm it fill the hole)

so yeah I got the hole filled but still not sure why they jumped alphabetically like that!

but im pretty happy I got the hole filled as that was bugging me

(BTW a good example of the date of first registrations being all over the place is NEV201M is Aug 1st but NEV202M is 5th sept LOL meanwhile NEV300M is Aug 21st! and NEV215M is back to Aug 1st again LOL)

[busmansholiday]

You'll know about these I'm sure, but I presume you have to go there to view / listen to. Any idea what's in them ?

https://www.essexarchivesonline.co.uk/result_details.aspx?ThisRecordsOffSet=1&id=305599

 

https://www.essexarchivesonline.co.uk/result_details.aspx?ThisRecordsOffSet=2&id=305601

 

[egg]

@busmansholiday - I have spoken to Essex Council about these, they are prepared to digitise them, but there is a fee - and a high fee for any commercial (non-personal) use. I think they would both be very interesting. I did make the ICR aware, but did not hear back.

[LightBulbFun]

like clockwork!

 

https://autoshite.com/topic/34488-invacar-mk12-magic-sponge-fun/page/20/?tab=comments#comment-1765381

although I dont see a price in your post so not sure where I got £20-30 from so just ignore that bit! LOL

[egg]

Here's the info..

[dollywobbler]

ICR potential is very promising. Sadly looks like we won't have a gathering of Invacars at the National Microcar Rally but I'll certainly do my bit to raise the profile.

And no, I'm not fitting black number plates to TWC.

[LightBulbFun]

On 8/18/2019 at 10:43 PM, dollywobbler said:

ICR potential is very promising. Sadly looks like we won't have a gathering of Invacars at the National Microcar Rally but I'll certainly do my bit to raise the profile.

And no, I'm not fitting black number plates to TWC.

in a way its all the more frustrating now that I have one, because I have one but I cant take it down LOL

aww

it was also just me figuring out when exactly did they change plate styles as that's something I have been wondering about in general, it looks like VTW-L would of been the last block to feature white on black plates, as WHK-L if WHK372L is anything to go on is on black on white/yellow plates, as it looks like her original raised digits plates survived until the end, 

although looking at the date of first registrations and what chassis numbers I have, I THINK there was a block between VTW-L and WHK-L either a Late Vxx-L block or the start of the Wxx-L blocks which may or may not have been on white on black plates im not sure

for those wondering the last AC Model 70 block I Have seen on white on black plates is the MPL-L block, sadly i have a bit of a gap after that block that I need to fill in as my next block after that is the OPD-L block (RRE20L is in between the 2 but she is a private Model 70 so that throws a bit of a wild card into the mix)

but given how VTW-L and MPL-L have similar dates of first registrations I do wonder if the change from white on black plates to black on white/black on yellow plates  was a DHSS order rather than something left up to AC/Invacars discretion

(as a side note I do think a correct K or L suffix and age Model 70 would look very smart on London Transport style actually white on black plates rather then silver on black)

 

speaking of Private Model 70's it turns out that Stuart didn't actually know that JHJ548N was a private Model 70 until I pulled its chassis number, and that JHJ548N and REV451R are the only known private invacar Model 70's full stop

it does raise the question of did private Invacar Model 70 chassis numbers actually go up numerically like the DHSS cars did?

if they did then there should be 15 other private Invacar Model 70's between JHJ548N and REV451R however as mentioned previously in this thread I went through the 10 blocks I have documented in between those 2 blocks and I have not found a single other private Invacar Model 70 sadly, however there are about 2000 Model 70's between JHJ-N and REV-R and my 10 blocks only cover 1000 cars so it could be those other 15 are hiding in the 10 blocks im missing)

there's also the fact that my method of detecting if a block contains a private Invacar Model 70, relies on 2 chassis numbers from the blocks being wide enough apart that it incorporates the private model 70 in between, the 2 somewhere if I cant find 2 Model 70's far enough apart in a block then theres a chance I could miss the private Model 70 in that block, in an ideal world I would just pull the chassis numbers of the Model 70's from the start and end of every block I have documented/know of but I cant do that sadly, i have to go through each block hoping I can find 2001-2003 survivors as those are the ones whos chassis numbers I can grab, but if say in a block I only am able to pull 2 chassis numbers towards the end of the block this leaves a large portion of the block unchecked

although thinking about it another way to see if a block contained a private Invacar Model 70 is if the block was 101 reg plates long like how REV-R is REV375R to REV475R

id test this with JHJ-N as well but being an ealier block sadly a number from the start and end just dont show up on the DVLA at all so it makes it hard to tell when a block starts and ended

 

(for those wondering I have 42 different Invacar Model 70 blocks documented, there should roughly be another 46 for me to discover if my maths and counting is correct )

 

bloody hell I dont half ramble LOL

[LightBulbFun]

I had a nice productive evening  , the current owner of TTW906R got in touch with me on facebook and I have not got a bunch more info on TTW906R, and was able to verify that its VIN plate chassis number matches my records at least  

and also got to see what its V5 says as its interesting to note that on the DVLA checker its details check out and same for its V5 but the MOT checker reports things wrong LOL

 

 

 

I also got a bunch of pictures so I have updated the picture of TTW906R in my survivors list as well as updating the details for it, I knew TTW906R was a survivor I was just not sure who with etc, so im happy to have been contacted by her current owner  

 

she is in running order and gets used every month to keep her going apparently  

[egg]

I wonder why the 'bumper' is painted back?

[LightBulbFun]

9 minutes ago, egg said:

I wonder why the 'bumper' is painted back?

Yeah I noticed that as well, im not sure who it was done by, ill have to ask at some point  (I also want to see what the actual chassis number is on the chassis itself)

I  know it was owned by Stuart at one point, and I was told now by her current owner, that she was then by a older man who bought it for his wife to use, and then when his wife passed away he sold it to the current owner