[Mike Cecil]

Hi Richard,

Good that your truck has the build plate (Darrin's did/does not), which helps with the possibilities.

Your truck is possibly 89131 from the same batch of Stores (Unbinned) taken on charge in NSW. The chassis numbers have a gap - 3844361278 is one of them, but given the sequence around it, 89131 with engine PR3946239, is the best possibility. Your vehicle was disposed of in 1962. (The other is 89127).

So, the possibility is that the batch of chassis arrived in 1943 and were assembled out of their boxes from Canada and stamped in late 1943, (even early 1944), but assembly of the complete truck with its special body wasn't completed until Oct 1944, when the plate was fixed onto the dash (it's almost the last thing to happen).

Given the wind-down in requirements for CMPs from 1943 onwards, and that this is a specialist vehicle, possibly with a lower delivery priority (each different body type had a delivery priority), this might well be the case. It's a theory, anyway, that accounts for a 1943-stamped chassis with a build date well into 1944!

Mike