Sonauto expert needed

[Brett Johnson]

With help from Karim, Marco Marinello and Ralph Zumbühl, I have put together a nice section on Amag ID information for cars originally sold in Switzerland. I'd be happy to include a similar section on Sonauto cars sold in France -- but I don't have any information other than a photo of one car with a tag on the rear latch panel. I left a place for it in the relevant chapter.

If you want to contact me directly, I am at: 356drb@indy.net

[steve shea]

You also have D'ieteren Freres in Belgium and Autogerma in Italy

[Brett Johnson]

I will happily include anything relevant -- primarily interested in tags or decals placed in cars and their chronology 1964-1973.

[911MRP]

And AFN ( later Porsche cars Great Britain ) who not only were Porsche importers for U.K. but family owner known to have intervened to thwart an order by US military commander to the mayor of Munich to close/dismantle BMW works and move assets to USA after Ww2 (

Without that Adlington brother (owner of AFN) likely there would be no BMW as we know it today! Not just BMW UK; no BMW full stop. The incomparable Jenks documents this anecdote about the Alain from role in his book about AFN.

The story of how a British major saved VW after ww2 is well known; the story of one of the Adlington brothers intervention saving BMW is not well known. AFN was the BMW importer to U.K. before war so maybe him intervening was not a completely selfless act (and before that were owners of Frazer Nash hence the initials).

While I appreciate the book is about authenticity hence interest in details like stamps and rags not history there is also a question of balance of story across European country concession holders if drilling down into jut one or two of them, but not others.


AFN didn’t require different stamps on metalwork or plates like some countries but the they sold imported a large number (majority) of RHD 911. Also some countries like South Africa at times sourced some 911 via AFN at time of sanctions. Goes beyond a few stamps / tags a key role (alongside others eg Hamilton Aus) for RHD 911 market and their differences — some differences that are very obvious; some others small sometimes missed details e.g area of the vin stamping is smaller on RHD than LHD or that the heater controls are not centred between the silver dashboard horizontals.

[Brett Johnson]

Yeah, but AFN didn't put ID tags on cars and that is what I want to explain. I do need additional 1965-1973 RHD cars for photography to flesh out the differences.

[davep]

A selection of tags from Australia, AMAG, D'Ieteren Freres, and a British Standard tag on most RHD cars that used the UK standards.

[davep]

Then there is the curious case of the M stamped next to the series letter that appears to associated with Italian cars.

[steve shea]

My 73S Italian delivery has FS

[911MRP]

A selection of tags from Australia, AMAG, D'Ieteren Freres, and a British Standard tag on most RHD cars that used the UK standards.

As said it wasn’t just Porsche. For U.K. market ( and maybe other markets like South Africa in the commonwealth that piggybacked U.K. automotive regulations and or got cars via U.K. importer to avoid political restrictions ?) a second small aluminium plate was affixed above the main plate on that same slam showing that the seatbelt mounting points conformed with a British standard of 65 ans 71. BS AU48.https://standards.globalspec.com/std...3/BS%20AU%2048

Regarding plate anomalies: Has anyone figured out the real reason why the 1973 T got TYP E ( rather than TYP F ) in the type box of the aluminium plate on slam panel. Doesn’t follow the norm. The theory that Porsche were simply using up excess inventory of the plates already stamped E falls flat on its face when the practice of using E continued even after plates with AG replaced KG?

[davep]

Regarding the VIN plate anomaly there is no good reason for the 911T retaining an E chassis designation when the the remaining models had an F chassis designation since all of them were pulled from the same production number pools. And the plates changed with the company designation change from KG to AG in May, but still retained the E/F difference.