An update from Chris Nicholson on the VIN, P J Grady located several damaged/incomplete Wooler Hodec cars with original VINs in this range, apparently after a lot of searching.
As such this is a 1982 car and will be UK registered as such. I think he will be more publishing details at a later date.
Also stole another idea from Chris Hawes : swapping the vents and stereo around so that a pop-up screen can be used without blocking the vents. Much easier to implement with the dash already off!