After around a mounth of calls, phone #'s, and names I contacted the origional owner of my 97. He said it was #345. He didn't sound like a car guy and wasn't really concerned about the badge # when he had the car, so I'm posting this just to make sure he was right and no one has this #.

 

Good job!
I don't see that anyone else has that # it looks like it should be legit.

 

Sweet, thanks.
I was woundering though, if only 318 97's were sold in the states and I've seen badge #'s in the 500s what happen to the other cars? they just skipped those #'s? went to a different country? race teams and r&d couldn't take up that many cars, right?

 

The true answer to that question is lost to us and discussing it can raise hackles even now, 8 years after the fact.

Personally, I think the couple of people who said that there were only 318, including the official who set it to paper, are just incorrect.

I have always felt the real number had to be closer to 750.

Others will say that numbers would be skipped and/or that '97 with high numbers were originally produced for another country and have been imported. I don't know. But 318 has always sounded way too low.

LOL... Sometimes I feel I have seen that many personally!

 

yeah i think they just underestimated the # of ITRs that came to the us that particular year
320's is way too low
i think 750 is more reasonable
dont wanna steal the thread but does anyone know off the top of their head how many came over in 2001, both NBP and PY?

 

I know 318 sounds very low, but that is the most credible source I have seen. I have also heard that there were only 1300 or so 97s & 98s brought here combined.
Who knows?
Moreover, because of that, this thread could, and has before, go on for a long time.
Thanks for the input everyone.

 

I noticed that your thread on another board did kind of rage along for a couple of hours. LOL...

 

Seems to me that most of the mid to high 300's and almost all of the 400's were made for Canada. Some of those likely made their way to the USA and some of those were originally sold in the US. The number of 480-500 in '97 for North America seems to be the most credible number i've seen, as i've not seen or heard of many cars with a number above 500 and there aren't any doubles between Canada and the US. So around 320 for the US sounds pretty close, to me anyway.