I suspect there are no "experts" to come forward as the FE "system" was begun on Minis 65 years ago, so those with the knowledge of why are almost certainly long gone. Later workers wouldn't likely know anything but "that's the way we've always done it". 

Which leads me to another question: Were FE or similar tags used on other cars such as Morris Minors, MGs etc. and what about models contemporary with Mini such as Midgets, MGBs etc. and then the cars that stemmed from the Mini concept?

I think the real mystery is why is there no "expert", who was actually involved with production, who can ..or will.. let on why these numbers exist. Maybe the stories I've heard about "stock control" is the total sum of the issue...

Someone went to a lot of trouble designing, manufacturing, distributing and fitting the plates that carry the numbers. Surely they existed for some useful purpose??? Maybe the production manager's sister had a boyfriend who ran a company that made little numbered plates :)

Cheers, Ian

Thanks for the replies guys!

I had my sister over the pond talk to the Gaydon Motor Museum guys in Warwickshire England; as far as they know the FE (front end) number is unique but was never tracked or recorded as were the other body panel designators.

Thanks, M.

I don't think "track" is quite the right word. Cars were not being tracked but individual components were.

(Many) Minis were not built piece by piece an a single production line. Parts were assembled into components that were then shipped to another site for assembly into a car. Some components were marked so that problems detected during final assembly could be tracked to their initial assembly point and thereby allowing any errors in that particular process to be corrected.

As well as "FE" (front end?) numbers on the inner guard cars had "F" (floor?) numbers as well. There may be others sequences ..serial numbers on engines and gearboxes come to mind.

I've compared my car with a few others and the various numbers do not seem to belong together. A Heritage Certificate (actually the factory production journals) allows chassis numbers to be compared with others and their build dates. Two cars with similar sequential chassis numbers can have "F" numbers and "FE" that differ by hundreds or even thousands. ie A car with chassis/car/VIN of 10 might have an F number of 105 and an FE number of 1234... Components were obviously stockpiled and brought forward for final assembly in some random manner. Chassis numbers do belong in batches that can be allocated to particular models. For example, the only way to separate 997 Coopers and early Ss is to know what batch their particular chassis number belongs to (apart from the obvious physical differences of course:).

I know there are some private data bases that allow FE numbers to be used to provide rough production dates. Unless you have access to one of these the FE number is pretty much a useless confection. (Unless... rego authorities decide to use to identify your car in their records because the actual identification number is not permanently attached to the car...) AFAIK the FE number is indeed unique.... anyone???

Cheers, Ian

According to Bill Cox's archives, FE numbers were used to track the car build through the factory and were not recorded.

I'm trying to figure out what the "FE" numbers on my Minis refer to. My 1969 pickup came without a VIN so the Idaho DMV used it as the VIN number (I told them that it wasn't the VIN but they said 'close enough'). In a post by Cheleker back in 2014 he states that the FE number was not tracked by the manufacturers, I'm just wondering what it was used for, maybe a batch number. One of my FE's is FE1905343.

Thanks, Martin.