News

Heritage Certificates from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust

Published: 09/08/2022

I’m sure if you are like me you will want to gather together as much historical information as you can about your historic vehicle.

Gathering as much provenance as you can is great to have in the vehicle file and of course will normally add to the cars value or at the very least give confidence to a potential buyer should you decide to sell.

I recently spent the morning with Richard Bacchus who is the certificate officer for the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust (BMIHT) which resides within the British Motor Museum at Gaydon in Warwickshire to find out what they can provide and how they do it.

The BMIHT are custodians of a vast array of vehicle records, build records and photographs from the British Motor Corporation, British Leyland and their individual marques and also hold the Aston Martin records.

Most of the information they hold is in the form of beautifully handwritten ledgers although they have been working to digitise the records they regularly use such as MG, Land Rover, Mini and Triumph which makes their job so much easier although maybe not so satisfying as looking at an original ledge. It does mean the wear and tear on these valuable and irreplaceable books is dramatically reduced for about 80% of the requests they receive.

Richard and his team of 3 work spend most of their time researching for private individuals heritage certificates although they do also provide certificates for many auction houses and dealers who are keen to add to the vehicle files of vehicles they are selling. On average they produce about 150 certificates a week but have been known in a busy period to create 200 and their lead time from request to dispatch is about 2 weeks so this team of 4 are very efficient.

These heritage certificates are used mainly for enhancing vehicle files, but many are also used to assist registration queries or to assist in the import/export of a vehicle.

Richard explained that the Land Rover Defender is very popular in the USA, and many are being imported from Europe in LHD specification. However, to get US registration the owner has to prove that the car is over 25 years old and has the original engine fitted otherwise the authorities crush the car and so a heritage certificate which confirms this information is a critical document in the import process.

The whole process is operated online so there is the crucial audit data to prove the validity of the information supplied.

Whilst with Richard, I helped him research the information on a Triumph Spitfire 1500 which had originally been sold in North America and for which the new purchaser in Maine USA wanted a certificate. By looking at the scanned ledger pages we quickly where able to confirm the Chassis number, Engine number, original body colour of Inca Yellow. We then confirmed the actual date of the car coming off the production line along with the key number. A certificate was promptly produced and signed by Richard ready for dispatch to the USA – a very satisfying investigation.

Heritage certificates cost from £43 up to £80 for an Aston Martin certificate in a beautiful A4 leather folder.

Full details can be found at https://www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk/archive/heritage-certificates

They also offer a web request service for £6 where they will answer a single question web research request. This means at the point of purchasing a vehicle you can quickly verify chassis numbers and ensure the car is what it says it is which seems excellent value for money to avoid a costly mistake.

Sadly, they don’t have all the ledger records for everything as some got destroyed many years ago, but they can access factory records and produce certificates for:

Aston Martin 1948-85 From Mark III to V8
Austin 1945-69 Postwar and BMC models (cars and commercials)
Austin Allegro 1977-82 All models (Longbridge build)
Austin Healey 1953-71 Longbridge and Abingdon build (not Warwick or 100 S models)
Lagonda 1961-85 Including the Aston Martin Lagonda 1979-85
Land Rover 1948 to present From Series I to Defender plus Discovery and Freelander
Maestro & Montego 1983 onwards All models, Austin & MG (later cars not recorded)
Metropolitan 1953-61 Nash, Hudson,
Austin Mini 1959-69 ADO 15 versions - Austin, Morris, Mini Cooper
Mini 1977-1981 ADO 20 versions badged Mini (Longbridge build only not Seneffe)
MG 1953-80 From TF Midget & ZA Magnette (not TC,TD, YA/YT/ & 1993-95 YB) to MGB & MGC including the MG RV8
Morris 1928-71 Prewar, postwar and BMC models (some light commercials but not Morris Commercials)
Range Rover 1970 to present All models
Riley 1953-69 From Pathfinder (not RM 1.5 & 2 litre)
Rover 1945-86 All models from P3 to SD1
Princess/Ambassador 1975-1983 Includes 18/22 Series (also known as ‘Wedge’)
Standard 1945-63 Cars and light commercials
Triumph 1946-81 All postwar models Triumph Acclaim 1981-1984 Honda Ballade derivative (Cowley build)
Vanden Plas Princess 1959-80 Plus many earlier Vanden Plas bodied cars
Wolseley 1901-31 Prewar, postwar and BMC/BL badge engineered & 1949-75
Other British Leyland from 1968 We hold additional records for some vehicles, particularly from the British Leyland era.