When did US Dash VINs start?

[Conserv]

1 hour ago, mike said:

I have a steering column upper pad with the VIN 1660900 stamped on it--the 899th US spec '02 off the line, so the presumption is that all US 02s had 'em.  My Feb '69 car--1664801 and a dash cover I have (1664803) have em--they were bright aluminum and a real glary nuisance--within a week of delivery I had painted mine black.  

 

One of our board members has a three digit US spec 1600 (1570XXX)--Robert, does your car have the dash VIN?

 

mike

Very interesting, Mike, that the new 2002’s were geared up for steering column VIN plates from early on! I’d guess that VIN 1660900 was an April 1968 car.

 

Neither Gary’s nor Robert’s early 1968 1600-2’s has steering column VIN plates (VIN 1560364, September 19, 1967; VIN 1560629, September 28, 1967, respectively).

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[02Les]

4 hours ago, mike said:

I have a steering column upper pad with the VIN 1660900 stamped on it--the 899th US spec '02 off the line, so the presumption is that all US 02s had 'em.  My Feb '69 car--1664801 and a dash cover I have (1664803) have em--they were bright aluminum and a real glary nuisance--within a week of delivery I had painted mine black.  

 

One of our board members has a three digit US spec 1600 (1570XXX)--Robert, does your car have the dash VIN?

 

mike

 

Mike do you have a picture for 1660900?

 

Here's 1660826 & 1660946 and no VIN tags. Don't have anything closer to 1660900 that shows the area.

 

 

 

[Mike Self]

On 6/27/2020 at 9:12 PM, 02Les said:

Mike do you have a picture for 1660900?

Oops--I misread the post--what I have is the VIN plate for 1660900, not the steering column cover.  I found this derelict body (literally) sitting out in a field 30 some years ago and did manage to pry the VIN plate off as it was the lowest number I'd seen.  But I don't have the steering column cover.  Sorry for the error in my memory.

 

However, my '69--1664801 is the 40th "second series" '69--that is assembled after 1 Jan '69-- off the line, with a 4 Feb build date and it does have the steering column VIN plate.  It appears that it took the factory over a month to make the adjustments to their production to incorporate all the 1 Jan '69 new Federal requirements.   Since we know that US cars were built in batches, mine must have been in that first batch of cars bound for the US with all the new Federal regulations met.  So I suspect that the column-mounted VIN plates began with 1664761, the first post-1 January production car.

 

mike

 

 

[rcf925]

delete

Edited June 29, 2020 by rcf925
wrong post