Topaz

Just saw this advertised on ebay, its got me puzzled. 

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To my knowledge the Topaz was a replacement for the trophy. The trophy came out in 1993 so I assume the Topaz was 1994 onwards.

I would say the van advertised is not a 1991 , not sure how its ended up on  a "J" reg.

I would say that is incorrect, the van I first ever looked at was a trophy, N reg, that wasn`t right either, it had more rust than anything and the upholstery wasn`t correct for the year more 1991, , I thought the Trophy was from 1991, the Topaz  2002 which I eventually bought was on the LWB when VW brought the LWB out AS used that and called it Topaz, ,  the Trophy was on a short wheel base with a pod added on  for the toilet/shower,

jt2011 wrote:
I would say the van advertised is not a 1991 , not sure how its ended up on  a "J" reg.

Something is certainly not right. At JT2011 says the first Topazs were built 94/95 as soon as VW released the LWB T4 to A/S. This replaced the short lived Trophy. The pictures are definitely of an early Topaz, but what's interesting is that the pictures show a 4 berth, of which only a handful were made in the whole run of the T4 Topaz.

I would suggest it's in the category of 'dodgy'

I'm sure the Trophy was 1993, my brother worked at the factory and it was all top secret, they spent a small fortune developing it, I think it was shown to the press just before the NEC show.

Then when the NEC show came round Swift had brought out a LWB T4, I think it was called the Carrera. The trophy instantly became obsolete.

Asked seller for build number and guess what - there isn't one!

I told the seller about the change from Trophy to Topaz and the years involved but that without the build number I wasn't interested as I had my doubts that it was genuine and this is the response I got...

''
Ha ha ..... Your obviously not the expert you think you are.. This is genuine as I have the original purchase receipt from autosleeper ... I'm quite glad your not interested .''

Perhaps someone else would like to ask for a copy of the receipt.

That upholstery was used around 1995.

Its one of two things, either a transplanted interior/ roof / windows  etc. , or more likely its a cloned vehicle at some point in its life, the current owner could be unaware. It could of been stolen at some point , the id / chassis numbers removed , the id of a j reg t4 was put on then resold.

As said many times before if the build number has been removed, someone is trying to hide something.

The lower fridge grille is missing (4th pic). That doesn't look right.

I have looked on the history re Trophy /Topaz, Trophy 93/.94 grey seats 95 blue, after that it is the topaz, no way is it 1991.could it have been built by the workers from AS with parts from there. I know that happened , it wouldn`t have had a build number in that case.

My thoughts exactly.

daisy mae wrote:I have looked on the history re Trophy /Topaz, Trophy 93/.94 grey seats 95 blue, after that it is the topaz, no way is it 1991.could it have been built by the workers from AS with parts from there. I know that happened , it wouldn`t have had a build number in that case.

Not possible, there is no way autosleeper would supply a worker with all the parts to build an exact copy of one of their models.

For example it was impossible to get hold of a roof, you could buy a roof from elsewhere that was a different shape but not the actual AS mould.

Its true workers did do there own vans but they were easy to tell apart from factory models.

Sorry jt2011

I read that on another forum last year, they were debating about mh that were for sale, there was no build numbers, that information came from someone that worked there, workers could buy the parts, they were not exact copies obviously,I didnot make this up, what is the point, no benefit to me at all.

daisy, you are right that vans were built by employees but they would look different, if they did copy one exactly they would probably be sacked as the bosses wouldn't be too happy.

Reminds me of the old Johny Cash song "One peice at a time"    


Andy

Now relisted but with number plate masked. Earlier advert was ended as 'seller made an error in the listing'.!

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Sent email to seller yesterday, no reply as yet.  

Had a look at the two bidders, 1st bid 0***b (4929 ) a lot of bids on mhs  previously to this one  and in the last 6 months has retracted 3 bids,   2nd bidder is a new bidder this is the first bid that he/she has made.

Sent email to seller yesterday, no reply as yet.  

Had a look at the two bidders, 1st bid 0***b (4929 ) a lot of bids on mhs  previously to this one  and in the last 6 months has retracted 3 bids,   2nd bidder is a new bidder this is the first bid that he/she has made.

I am guessing that the van mentioned a few years ago in this thread is back up for sale again:
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Something dodgy about this as its a 1991 registered van but VW didn't produce LWB chassis till 1994 ish.