Power Steering mystery

[David Reilly]

We have a new member from Australia (P1B4351BW). His car does not have power steering. It has the ‘P’ prefix on the data plate, but the chassis number in the bonnet catch channel does not.

There are holes where the power steering reservoir would be normally attached with rubber bungs plugging them (see attached photo).

Question 1: Were the holes in the fenders of all cars and plugged on those without power steering fitted?

Question 2: Does anyone have a car where the two chassis numbers differ in prefix (or suffix)?

Question 3: As the two chassis numbers differed when the car left the factory, why and how might it have occurred?

[Glyn Ruck]

Scab workers in the middle of a strike in UK factories.

[cass3958]

As Glyn says it might be a case of the car being set for PAS but when it came to actually fit it in the factory the parts were not available due to a component manufactures strike. The car would then have been assembled as a non PAS car.
Another thought is that it left the factory with PAS and someone has changed to an alternator. The PAS pump has been removed along with all its components as there was no longer a drive on the back of the alternator and the car has been changed back to a non PAS steering box.
Lastly has the car had a body swap. Taking a non PAS rust free shell and putting the VIN plate from a PAS car on the bulkhead although in this scenario the numbers on the VIN plate and the slam panel would be different not just excluding the "P".

[Orlando St.R]

My car was originally non-PAS and had the holes present with what look like the remains of rubber bungs.

IMG_2468_crop_2.JPG (132.09 KiB) Viewed 1890 times

Seems most likely to have been an error at time of manufacture.

Definitely an odd one!