Topic: Build Date help

[68 S Code]

I know someone who has a 64 1/2 convertible without a door tag. If he gave me his VIN is there enough of a data base to narrow down the approximate build date? I also asked him to get me some of the sheetmetal date stamps round the trunk opening figuring that if it wasn't requartered those should be one of the few areas we could trust as being original to the car. Any other suggestions?

[Pete Bush]

Yes, I can narrow it down using the Mustang Production Guide as a Database.

[J_Speegle]

If you provide the VIN we can give you an idea of when Ford thought it would be built (what other cars entered into the system around the same time were assigned).

Provide that and one of us will post examples

[68 S Code]

Ok guys the vin is 5F08F207215. Thanks for the help.

[J_Speegle]

Ok guys the vin is 5F08F207215. Thanks for the help.

22G was assigned to cars #207051  #207336

[68 S Code]

Jeff thats remarkable. I presume that was the scheduled build date. Do you know if they were ahead, behind or on schedule that week?

[Pete Bush]

Attached is a relevant page out of the Mustang Production Guide. You compare the VIN in question to those in the guide and then look at the corresponding dates. These are the scheduled build dates as found on the door warranty tag. It's not an exact science, however. You'll notice that 208069 has a scheduled build date of 18G.

[68 S Code]

Ive never seen this document so I find it very interesting. I presume the names attached to particular seial numbers are either the name of the person ordering the car or a sales rep from a dealership? Very cool on the units going to england and Alan Mann Racing Ltd. What I find odd is that the serial numbers can be listed so that there are a few hundred cars between them or just a few cars. Also all the numbers following the serial number represent DSO, color code, body style? Im sure this was all disected decades ago. Im just new to it. Is something like this available for all years or just the early 64-66 cars?

Did a little reading of a Mustang Monthly article regarding this document. So this is mostly data collected from current owners who shared information about their cars. Thats even more intriguing in that the persons of the hobby were responcible for answering some questions for others. I presume this book is out of print?

[ChrisV289]

Does this production guide also contain San Jose cars as well or just Dearborn?

[carlite65]

Ive never seen this document so I find it very interesting. I presume the names attached to particular seial numbers are either the name of the person ordering the car or a sales rep from a dealership? Very cool on the units going to england and Alan Mann Racing Ltd. What I find odd is that the serial numbers can be listed so that there are a few hundred cars between them or just a few cars. Also all the numbers following the serial number represent DSO, color code, body style? Im sure this was all disected decades ago. Im just new to it. Is something like this available for all years or just the early 64-66 cars?

not a single document. look here please. extensive effort went into the gathering of the information.

  http://insearchofmustangs.org/Publications.aspx

[jwc66k]

Ive never seen this document so I find it very interesting. I presume the names attached to particular seial numbers are either the name of the person ordering the car or a sales rep from a dealership? Very cool on the units going to england and Alan Mann Racing Ltd. What I find odd is that the serial numbers can be listed so that there are a few hundred cars between them or just a few cars. Also all the numbers following the serial number represent DSO, color code, body style? Im sure this was all disected decades ago. Im just new to it. Is something like this available for all years or just the early 64-66 cars?

The names listed were the current owners that sent their info to Smart and Haskell. The numbers shown are Mustangs only as full size Ford, Fairlanes and Falcons were built at some of the same plants using the same six digit number. Mercury products used a different starting point. Unfortunatley the 64 to 66 book is unavailable and the 67 to 73 is in short supply. You can get better and more specific info from a Marti report for 67 to 73 years (and more years). It was a purely volunteer effort from the contributors (I'm one by the way, listed in the acknowledgments of the 67-73 book) and many of us have begged the two Jims to make an update to the 64-66 book.
Jim

[Pete Bush]

I believe that Kevin Marti has bought the rights to the books and research.

http://insearchofmustangs.org/

[J_Speegle]

Does this production guide also contain San Jose cars as well or just Dearborn?

Yes there are examples from all the plants but limited to those that participated in the project by sending in their car's info and what some more energetic individuals collected at shows and wrecking yards during the collection period


Names listed could be the original buyer, who the car was sent too originally (example is Allen Mann in the scan Pete posted). More often the person collecting the info or the owner at the time the information was collected.

[john_simms]

At least some of the data in this data-base must have come from  the www.earlymustang.com website/data-base.  The reason I say that is there was an incorrect Trim Code listed for my car on that site and the same mistake is on the "In Search of Mustangs" data-base referenced here.

There is also a lady named Veronica at www.allfordmustangs.com who has a large data-base started too.

It would be really nice to get all of the data combined into one place!

[john_simms]

I'll hijack this thread a little and ask the question, is it possible to track a DSO code from the VIN data?  My tag is missing and that is the only piece of data the I don't have.  Thanks.

John