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216 How many RV8s were made and in what colours? Christopher Allan (Flame Red 1192) from the West Midlands has done further research on the RV8 Build Records at the Heritage Motor Centre museum at Gaydon and has updated the earlier research undertaken by John Bolt (Nightfire Red 1228) from Buckingamshire. The updated chart shows the numbers of RV8s manufactured for the three market categories in the various production colours. (Updated Nov 10) The initial version of this chart was produced back in November 2004 following a visit the Gaydon made by John to get a Heritage Certificate for his RV8. He asked the archivist whether they had any details of how many RV8s had been produced in each colour and found they did not have that information to hand. The archivist suggested John could work through the build cards for the production cars and produce the information so a few weeks later John found he had a day to spare so set off again for Gaydon and took up the archivist's offer. The original chart, updated following the further work by Chris Allan at Gaydon, is available as a download. RV8 colours chart From his manuscript copy of the records, John found his RV8, a reimported car from Japan, was the 58th car in Nightfire Red and 674th car sent to Japan. The table shows that almost 80% of the RV8s sent to Japan were in Woodcote Green. How many RV8s were built? If you are puzzled as to how to reconcile the frequently mentioned total production figure of 2,000 RV8s then the following explanation may help. The first production RV8 was VIN 0251 in line with the longstanding custom at MG and the final RV8 was VIN 2233, a total of 1,983 cars. Research by John Bolt and Chris Allan indicates there were 31 pre-development and validation cars of which some 24 were registered, so the RV8 production total is believed to be 2,007. [details to be checked with John Bolt at the NEC on Saturday 13th November 2010]. RV8 build cards
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