GT40 Mk.I Road Car Number Plate Question

[Graham Endeacott]

Hi All,

On British registered road cars such as the press demonstrator GT40P/1013 which carried the registration number OVX 355D, the front registration was carried on some sort of bracket fixed to the front lift bar. Does anyone have any details or photos of this bracket and what the individual letters were mounted on?

A normal number plate was wasn't used as this would have restricted airflow into the radiator and unfortunately, all the road cars that I have seen, including 1013, no longer have this style of registration.

Any help or info would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,


Graham.

 

[Frank Catt]

See attached pics

 

[Graham Endeacott]

Many thanks, they do help but I would like to know how it was done on the original cars.

Regards,


Graham.

 

[DaveM]

Graham, Frank's photos are correct. Photos of the original P1013 press car as well as other Mk I's of the era show that style of open letters in the intake grill.

 

[Graham Endeacott]

Thanks Dave, it's not the style of letters that I'm asking about, it's how they were mounted.

Regards,


Graham.

 

[Andy Green]

Hi Frank,
thanks for posting, it's much neater than having a stick-on front plate

Graham,
attached is how I've mounted my letters - the frame & clips have yet to be painted black. Get your jigsaw out!

Regards,
Andy

 

[Allan Feldman]

Grahame I do not know if this helps but if you have Ronnie Spains book go to page 243 It shows MKI road car P/1044 with its number plate missing. It shows a bar goung across and the mount for the number plate. What it does not show is where the bar goes to or its mounting points. It could be the mounting bar for jacks. Certainly a lot of original GT40's had this bar going across the intake even with no jacks attached. I might ask my friend who has P/1071 because his car had the number plate fix this way.
Regards Allan

 

[Graham Endeacott]

Hi Allan,

I have seen the photo in Ronnie's book and the bracket is mounted on the lift bar as you say. I'm seeing Ronnie in shortly so I'll have a look at the original photo to see if that helps. I'm not sure if the bracket shown was fitted when the car was built or some years after.

If you could ask your friend, that would be appreciated. Thanks for your help so far.

Regards,


Graham.

 

[Allan Feldman]

Hi Grahame my friend Mark sent me this unfortunately I do not know how to post attachments but Ive attached this file to this post and hope it opens

I attach copy of JW parts list. Where the arrows point there are 2 mounting brackets (triangles) that the number plate bar is mounted on-- from one side to the other. It will only hold the number plate unless it is considerably strengthened. Ours is and can be used for towing. A solid number plate was used for road cars. This stopped a fair amount of the air flow. So at the time we discovered that Lotus made a mesh number plate mounting that you could clip the numbers/letters to. The rest was a lot of holes. No problem with the air flow.. We still have it. Or you just stick a number plate on the body work, which I think is illegal now.

I hope this helps Allan

 

[Graham Endeacott]

Thanks Allan.

 

Hi Graham,
I purchased the individual period cast aluminium digits from Tippers Plates and mounted them with star washers on to the fine mesh radiator grill. They've remained there since 2003 and do the job simply and neatly!
Chris