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Found this sequence on wiki:
1] MCW: The company was created by Metro Cammell Weymann (MCW) as a taxicab manufacturing enterprise, producing the MCW Metrocab from 1987.
2] Reliant: In 1989, Reliant acquired Metrocab from MCW, and transferred the plant to Tamworth.
3] Hooper: Following the collapse of the Reliant Group in 1991, Metrocab was bought out of receivership by the vehicle coachbuilder Hooper. In December 2000 the company suspended trading, and the corporate recovery firm of Leonard Curtis was appointed as administrators.
4] Kamkorp: In June 2001, Kamkorp purchased Metrocab's assets from the receiver and restarted production under the new holding company Metrocab (UK). In April 2005 Metrocab restarted production of the Metrocab after a 14-month suspension. Production of the original Metrocab finally ceased in April 2006. In 2014, the electric-powered New Metrocab was launched. It is the first authorised electric-powered London black cab.
(which seems to be the same as Sandie's opening comments - either confirms that info or is the same source). Digging about for Hooper in the 90s is fairly blank - it came out of the coachbuilding firm, but seems to be a trading name as much as anything. But it covers a nine year period so was a significant episode, and rather stronger than the fairly brief Reliant phase. Which means that we should organically have loads of Hoopers compared to Reliants. Maybe a good trawl of the MCW batch would produce them.
Or we're trying to be too clever by splitting stuff which has minimal visual differentiation, so relies (too?) heavily on plate-dating and record info (which does give some branding info, but not necessarily consistently or reliably).
So I think 3 options
(a) bumble along as we are - no-one seems to mind the current system and a few folk seem to be aware of the naming issues, although it's almost certainly producing inconsistencies
(b) dig in and bring out the full Hooper period examples as much as we can, and get these noticed so folk understand the new emphases. It might also end up enlarging the Reliant numbers
(c) abandon Hooper, but to me that means abandoning Reliant as well as keeping it would be anomalous. So this option effectively becomes make everything just MCW.
Maybe (b) has already been done in practice - I was surprised when I looked how few pages there were across the different brands. I've now exhausted my envelope, and without coming up with a preferred suggestion. The only potentially useful thing I can give is that if Hooper goes, Reliant should as well. So the choice becomes (a) or (c).
1] MCW: The company was created by Metro Cammell Weymann (MCW) as a taxicab manufacturing enterprise, producing the MCW Metrocab from 1987.
2] Reliant: In 1989, Reliant acquired Metrocab from MCW, and transferred the plant to Tamworth.
3] Hooper: Following the collapse of the Reliant Group in 1991, Metrocab was bought out of receivership by the vehicle coachbuilder Hooper. In December 2000 the company suspended trading, and the corporate recovery firm of Leonard Curtis was appointed as administrators.
4] Kamkorp: In June 2001, Kamkorp purchased Metrocab's assets from the receiver and restarted production under the new holding company Metrocab (UK). In April 2005 Metrocab restarted production of the Metrocab after a 14-month suspension. Production of the original Metrocab finally ceased in April 2006. In 2014, the electric-powered New Metrocab was launched. It is the first authorised electric-powered London black cab.
(which seems to be the same as Sandie's opening comments - either confirms that info or is the same source). Digging about for Hooper in the 90s is fairly blank - it came out of the coachbuilding firm, but seems to be a trading name as much as anything. But it covers a nine year period so was a significant episode, and rather stronger than the fairly brief Reliant phase. Which means that we should organically have loads of Hoopers compared to Reliants. Maybe a good trawl of the MCW batch would produce them.
Or we're trying to be too clever by splitting stuff which has minimal visual differentiation, so relies (too?) heavily on plate-dating and record info (which does give some branding info, but not necessarily consistently or reliably).
So I think 3 options
(a) bumble along as we are - no-one seems to mind the current system and a few folk seem to be aware of the naming issues, although it's almost certainly producing inconsistencies
(b) dig in and bring out the full Hooper period examples as much as we can, and get these noticed so folk understand the new emphases. It might also end up enlarging the Reliant numbers
(c) abandon Hooper, but to me that means abandoning Reliant as well as keeping it would be anomalous. So this option effectively becomes make everything just MCW.
Maybe (b) has already been done in practice - I was surprised when I looked how few pages there were across the different brands. I've now exhausted my envelope, and without coming up with a preferred suggestion. The only potentially useful thing I can give is that if Hooper goes, Reliant should as well. So the choice becomes (a) or (c).