Euro 1602 Vin Plate Artifact

[eastsidebimmer]

I was returning from a weekend roadtrip and stopped at an antique mall in western Indiana to look for mantiques/garage art and found a booth selling old car dealer scripts, emblems, license plates, etc. I wonder what happened to this poor eurospec 5/75 1602 [3980161] and how his vinplate and grillebadge ended up amongst doilies and hummels? I got both items for $5.

[malagalaga]

What an unusual find. That CCA badge is in miserable shape, so I can only imagine how the poor '02 looked at the end of its life.

The car is not in my copy of Les' database.

[eurotrash]

Nice find Ben. I scoured a massive collection at a swap meet once and only found a bike roundel..

[c.d.iesel]

actually - VIN # 3980161 falls into the Left Hand Drive,

model year 1973, series of 3930001 to 3990000 1602 cars

[vinceinIL]

Nice going!

vince

[eastsidebimmer]

Thanks CD, plot thickens! I plugged the VIN it into this decoder [ http://www.bmw-z1.com/VIN/VINdecode-e.cgi ] and got the following:

Chassis number 3980161

Vehicle code 2011

Series 114

Model 1602

Body type saloon

Catalog model ECE

Production date 1975 / 05

Engine M10

Transmission Manual

Steering Left

Catalyzer NONE

Ream OEM returns: 05/1975 114 1602 Sedan M10 Europe Left hand drive Manual Production Code: 2011

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/select.do?vin=3980161

[eastsidebimmer]

I finally sent in a request to the GroupArchives and got some info on the VIN plate I found last year:

The BMW 1602 VIN 3980161 was manufactured on May 14th, 1975 and delivered on July 9th, 1975 to Nicaragua. The original colour was Sahara, paint code 006