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I bought my wife a London Roadster about a year and a half ago and she loves it. Hers is on a VW chassis and engine, with a fully automatic transmission. Great little car – reliable and economical.
I own a London Roadster which was factory built. The VIN number plate is riveted to the driver’s side of the transmission tunnel, just in front of the driver’s seat, directly below the shifter mounting bracket. I had to remove / lift up the carpet at that location to see it. The VIN for factory built cars will start with “LCWL” and be 16 characters in length.
That is indeed a London Roadster. London Coach Works Limited affixed their own VIN plate to their factory-assembled cars – the location as mentioned in the above post on this thread. The VIN will start off with “LCWL” followed by a two digit year it was manufactured, and then a series of 10 digits after that. The LCWL stands for “London Coach Works Limited”. On mine, I have looked for the original VW VIN information in the typical locations, but have not been able to find it. Perhaps they removed it. Nowhere in any of the literature I have on the vehicle does it ever mention VW.
I own a London Roadster which was factory built. The VIN number plate is riveted to the driver’s side of the transmission tunnel, just in front of the driver’s seat, directly below the shifter mounting bracket. I had to remove / lift up the carpet at that location to see it.
I am the owner of a London Roadster. Have done some research on the car and the company.
History of the company:
London Coach Works Limited, Dearborn, Michigan. The registered office address was 25190 Michigan Ave, Inkster, Michigan, 48141. It looks like it was first incorporated on 9-26-1978 (1,000 shares). I have found a second incorporation notice (might have been an IPO) on 3-15-1979 for 50,000 shares. They took a small business loan of $270,000 (Comerica Bank) on 8/7/1980. Their last annual report was in 1988. The resident agent’s name was Ian Stevenson. The corporation was automatically dissolved on 5-15-1991. There was also a company at the same address during this period called the Victoria Street Garage, apparently in existence from 12-27-1984 through 5-15-1989. All of the above was found on the Michigan.gov website and is publicly available. I have a one page factory brochure – it never mentions the word ‘Volkswagen’.
I bought the car for my wife about a year ago. It was factory built in 1983 and has a London Coach Works VIN tag. My understanding is that about 15,000 of these cars were factory built (I’ve been unable to verify that – seems high), and they were also available as a kit car. As most probably know, they are built on VW beetle chassis and engines. I’m an old hotrodder who has built many cars and most of them use small block Chevy engines, so I’ve been learning Volkswagen recently. The engine in this car is a 1600 cc VW, 2v carb, generator, dual port manifold, has air adjustable rear shocks, and has a VW fully automatic type 3 transmission (my wife never learned the manual trans). Have found it so far to be fairly simple to work on and there is plenty of VW knowledge in my local area. I can tell you it is a delight to drive and dependable so far.
