FE Ambulance

[mcl1959]

The tag does not seem right for a NZ made car. If it was made in NZ, the tag would read FE-2104-XXXX-NZ, the trim no and paint no would be blank.
If the van had a new shell, the plate would have the part no followed by a 2 or 3 digit number.

The number 7 36603-S looks like a chassis number from the Sydney plant. A check to see if there is a chassis number on the van would confirm if it is the same.
It is strange that it has FE in front of the number.
A photo of the ID plate would be good

Ken

[fe-ambo]

The body number hasnt been stamped in the inner guard, but I am told this was a common practice for cars assembled in New Zealand.

The AI 6900 number plates are heavy aluminium with black paint.
The Victorian registration label was from 1988.

Still placing all the pieces of the jigsaw together. 

Cheers
Paul

[mcl1959]

The plate is genuine New Zealand and indicates that the van was assembled there. You can just see the "NZ" after the S.
I've been trying to come up with some logic for this.
Maybe the van was built in Sydney as a complete standard van and then sent to the New Zealand Holden assembly plant where it was fitted out as an ambulance and the original body plate was removed and replaced with this one. I think the NZ plant only routinely assembled sedans during the FE model run

The old trim and paint codes would have been wrong since the van was retrimmed and repainted. So the easiest thing to do was replace the tag and stamp the new one with the original Sydney number - This is only a theory

[Spinner]

That tag bears quite careful examination.  It appears to have another number stamped underneath the 'FE 7-36603S NZ'.  The dash (or hyphen) is a '1' on its side too.

From teh photograph, I reckon that I can see the following overstamped numerals:
unknown under the F and E;
hyphen or dash under the first 3;
8(?) under the first 6;
maybe 5 or 7 under the second 6;
9 under the 0;
4 under the S.

Trim and paint codes may be discernable with good lighting and a magnifying glass.

Cheers

Brett

[brett_f]

The tag has also been previously removed/replaced as the rivets are not genuine.
Brett-f

[mcl1959]

By george you're right Brett, The plate has been over stamped.
If the plate belongs to the van from original, it should read FE - 2104 - XXX - NZ
In this case the XXX could be 879 and you can just see the 2 at the start of the 7 but you can't see what's after that.
I'm pretty sure that FE is stamped underneath the FE at the start.


It needs some very close examination to see what is there.
Ken

[JB]

Just my guess, but I think that when it was rego'd over there they would not have been happy with the difference between the subframe and the shell so the subframe number won out in the end.

I had a similar discussion when I went to re register my van 8 years ago.

Jason.

[zulu]

That sounds plausible Jason, so that would give Paul both his chassis & body nos if he can decipher the body number from the overstamped no

[Holdens n Hearses]

lol not having much luck Paul ... poor bugga

[collecta]

Before they restamped they had ago at flattening out the old numbers, checkout the bottom of the word "identification" & "trim No" the letters are missing from a bit of panel beating.