MGF Trophy 160SE numbers built?

[grinnall]

Would anyone be able to clarify the numbers built of these?
I've recently bought one and have been doing some research. Different websites give conflicting numbers of how many were built, where and then where they were sent. On one website the production numbers for vin prefix SARRDZBP is 1430 but a german website suggests that 2000 were built. Another website suggests that BMW built 500 and then a further 296, totalling 796.The number currently registered on the road or sorned appears to be approx 580, suggesting that 796 may be the number retained in the UK. It appears that 55 were sent to the Netherlands, 24 to belgium which were limited editions.It has also been suggested that 250 went to Germany, 50 to France and 7 to Luxemburg and an unknown number to Italy and Australia.
Does anyone have the true numbers or can point me in the direction of where to find them?
Thanks for any help or comments!

[adrianclifford]

You are correct..1430 built world-wide, 796 for the UK, 55 Holland, 24 Belgium, 7 Luxembourg (the Benelux cars have engraved ash-trays showing their sequence eg ../55 or ../24 or ./7), 250 Germany, 50 France, the rest around the world. If we ever get the time we can interrogate the data and we can identify all countries of delivery. There are no limited editions they are all the same either yellow, red, anthracite or blue. Other than the ash trays there are no differences, all non UK cars appear to be SARRDZBPC2D......, UK cars can be 2001 or 2002 build years. There are many in Australia and New Zealand also around Europe and Scandinavia but this does not mean they were all originally delivered there, they could be imports.

Hope this helps.

[Rob Bell]

This is a question for Dave I think, but some of the discrepancies are between the number made and the numbers registered in the UK I suspect.

[Dave_T]

Hi Grinnall,
Bit busy with the Thames Bridges & Tunnels at the mo, but I'll try to get some info on this post soon

Dave.

[Keith Williams]

I have deleted a duplicate thread in the Welcome area and transferred the posts from there into this thread to keep all the answers together

[Rob Bell]

Thanks for merging Keith, and a great post Adrian.

MY2002 are likely to be the ones fully homologised for European sale and have a spec that includes ABS, as well as a different state of engine calibration to the earlier UK-only MY2001 models

[Dieter K]

... for vin prefix SARRDZBP is 1430 but a german website suggests that 2000 were built. ...

That german site has just been corrected to the 1430 pcs
Thanks for pointing on that failure.

These are the totals
804 UK
251 D
80 Australia
61 Switzerland
55 Netherland
39 France
35 Greece
31 Belgium
30 Italy
21 Austria
21 Portugal
2 Spain
1430

545 LHD
885 RHD

[Rob Bell]

Awsome, thanks Dieter!

[Dieter K]

Just had the time to lookup

btw, someone will find a deviation with the 885 RHD to the count of Trophys for the UK and Australia ?
Theres one RHD Trophy more, cause that was shipped to Germany.
A lucky british army soldier based in Germany used the Rover Tax Free Sales in Gutersloh to get his one.

[colintf]

Just had the time to lookup

btw, someone will find a deviation with the 885 RHD to the count of Trophys for the UK and Australia ?
Theres one RHD Trophy more, cause that was shipped to Germany.
A lucky british army soldier based in Germany used the Rover Tax Free Sales in Gutersloh to get his one.

You always amaze me Dieter with what you know

[grinnall]

Thanks very much for the clarification and all the replies!

Just one other small point which may be of interest.

Current recorded figures suggest that there are approx 580 licesnsed and sorned Trophys in the UK. From the same source the number licensed appears to have peaked between 2002-3 at approx 714. Where it has been suggested that there were 804 I would assume the balance may have gone abroad, been retained in garages without registering, etc.

Would anyone have any ideas?

[adrianclifford]

Dieter, sorry but there's a slight mistake from your figures, Belgium was 24 and Luxembourg 7 (you have combined both into a figure of 31). I'm glad you had time to filter the data, I'm still trying

By the way I found a "new" Luxembourg addition last weekend : Reg MG0919 SARRDZBPN2D530706 #2/7 for Luxembourg on the ash tray.

[Dieter K]

Good point with the mistake. Bad news though.
The problem with this data base is, they have had no cicode for Luxembourg. So impossible to split them correct.
May be Erik or Pascal knows how they did the import, cause it looks like all went through the importer in Belgium.

Thank you for sharing #2/7

[adrianclifford]

I only know Benelux figures because of the engraved ash trays so I am 100% sure this is correct.

[grinnall]

If I can persue my earlier comment further, Dieter indicated that out of the 805 UK right hand drive cars 1 went to a soldier in Germany, making a total of 804. The total number of licenced trophys in the UK peaked at approx 714. My assumption is that some of the 804 UK rh cars must have been privately exported elsewhere and that perhaps there are still some unregestered unlicenced no mileage trophys lying about in storage. Could this be the case?

[yorkie]

There are plenty RHD here in France but I am not aware of any way of checking the numbers.

[Rob Bell]

If I can persue my earlier comment further, Dieter indicated that out of the 805 UK right hand drive cars 1 went to a soldier in Germany, making a total of 804. The total number of licenced trophys in the UK peaked at approx 714. My assumption is that some of the 804 UK rh cars must have been privately exported elsewhere and that perhaps there are still some unregestered unlicenced no mileage trophys lying about in storage. Could this be the case?

Hmm, interesting. That would suggest that there are 90 missing cars.

I suspect that you are looking at survival figures from "howmanyleft.com"? Their database, like ours on the Register, is dependent on how the data has been entered. It is entirely possible that when some of the MGF Trophys were registered, they were not logged with the DVLA as a MGF 160 Trophy LE, but rather more simply as "MGF" or even "MGF VVC".

There is evidence that the DVLA database is less than perfect: look at the thread on the technical forum regarding the Chinese era cars' engine numbers. The correct code starts 18N4S2. However a significant number of cars, on their V5 document, shows an erroneous engine number of 18N252. I haven't worked out the proportions, but would estimate that this important number has been incorrectly entered in over 25% of cases!

To loose 11% of registered Trophy LEs on the basis of improperly completed registration documentation is therefore not beyond the realms of reality.

Sadly, the chances of finding a barn filled with 90 unregistered, delivery mileage only MGF Trophy 160s that MG Rover or their auditors forgot about is going to be very close to zero

Loved to be proved wrong though!

[Androlyn]

Just found this thread after some digging as I was interested in not only how many MGF Trophy's have been produced but is it known the numbers by colour?
Or even a rough percentage guide would interest me, was it down to customer orders or what was made available in the four colours?

[Androlyn]

Further to my last post I have just found this on a site MG Rover build info, some of course then got shipped abroad.

Trophy Yellow: 694
Trophy blue: 425
Anthracite Metallic: 199
Solar Red: 112

Is the Trophy Blue a solid colour or metallic, the Trophy Yellow and Solar Red look solid to me?

[Steve White]

Trophy blue is a metallic.
Both Trophy yellow an solar red are indeed solid.