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glass on a motor vehicle bears a
manufacturer’s mark and (if you are lucky) a
date code. This can be particularly useful when
attempting to verify the year and month in which
a vehicle was actually manufactured. (Although
please note that this is not
a foolproof way of determining a car's age, as
the glass may have been replaced at some time in
the past). Ford used three different
glass manufacturers for the Ford Anglia,
"Indestructo", "Triplex"
and "Tyneside".
Triplex
Glass
One of the most common
makes of glass in the Ford Anglia was from
Triplex Glass. The origins of Triplex Glass dates
back to 1826, when John William Bell founded the
St Helens Crown Glass Company in England.
Bell’s technical ability was combined with
the funds from three prominent families: The
Bromilows, Greenalls, and the Pilkingtons. In
1829 the Company was renamed Greenalls and
Pilkington. After the withdrawal of Greenalls in
1848, the firm was again renamed, this time to
Pilkington Brothers.
In the late
1830’s and early 1840’s the
manufacturing of sheet glass had transformed from
a process referred to as crown glass to the blown
cylinder process. The cylinder process provided a
more competitive advantage, which allowed
Pilkington Glass and a few other companies to
dominate the market. By 1876 technology had
advanced the plate glass process. This led to a
boom in the plate glass industry throughout
England. With the United States becoming more
industrialized and self-sufficient the English
export market began to wane. This meant that many
glass companies failed by the turn of the century
leaving Pilkington as one of the survivors.
Between 1883 and 1920 the plate glass process had
essentially remained the same. Then in a
co-operative effort with the Ford Motor Company,
Pilkington developed a continuous flow process
and a method of continuous grinding and
polishing. With the rise of mass production in
the motor industry, the demand for plate glass
was greatly increased. The need for the
specialized production of safety glass led to the
formation of the Triplex Safety Glass Company in
1923.
The
name "Triplex" and either the word
"Laminated" or "Toughened" is
usually etched on the glass in a circle, with the
British Vehicular Safety (BVS) kitemark under
them. For dating purposes, Triplex uses a system
of dots local to the
words "Triplex" and
"Laminated" or "Toughened".
The
year of Manufacture (last digit only) was
indicated by a  (dot) under the letters of the words
"LAMINATED" or "TOUGHENED"
and the month of manufacture was indicated by (dots) over the letters
"T", "R", "E" and
"X" of the word "TRIPLEX"
These date codes are shown below:
Coding
for the Year of Manufacture
A
(dot) under the first letter of
either word represents a year ending in a
"1" (ie 1961)
A (dot) under the second
letter of either word represents a year ending in
a "2" (ie 1962)
A (dot) under the third
letter of either word represents a year ending in
a "3" (ie 1963)
and so on.
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