doug7740
- Reaction score
- 1,110
- Thunderbird Year
- 1955
If you attached a picture of your VIN plate I'll be happy to decode the VIN for you.
doug7740
1955 Thunderbird Blue
doug7740
1955 Thunderbird Blue
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What I've learned here, the valley pan was also different to accommodate the shallower intake manifold on the dual carb set up. When we got ahold of our gems most have been messed with. My car was 20yo when I bought it 40+ years ago and at that time people just considered it was 'just an old car' not knowing it's potential value.It's apparent that is not just a rumor. Probably to simplify the top end and better gas milage not realizing they are loosing the originality. If even available what would the manifold & carbs go for now? Almost priceless like parts for the 'F' birds.
You have some incorrect assumptions. A-M is used for the first 12 months of production, regardless of year. We see starting months usually as J (September) so a typical year with 12 months or less of production runs J-K-L-M-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H. Letters I and O are never used in date codes. If a model year goes into the 13th month, then the second set of letters N-Z is used, starting with whatever month is the 13th. In the case of 1957, the 13th month was September 1957, so the letter W was used; the last month of production was December 1957 so the letter Z was used. The complete run of month letters for 1957 in order is J-K-L-M-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-W-X-Y-Z. In any event the date stamped on the plate is a scheduled date, it was not meant to represent the actual build day although in some cases the actual build date fell on the scheduled date. That run of 1957 month letters is just that, 1957. It cannot be applied to every year or Ford product. You always have to consider the year of the car, the start of production, and how long production lasted. Lesson #2 will be about the integration of 1968 Lincolns and 1969 Mark IIIs from the same assembly plant, with different start dates, with an engine changeover, using the same set of "last six" of the VIN. As far as the data plate, these things were produced 1 at a time, with a hand-operated press. It's called human inconsistency.Confused a bit by my 1957 data plate
Code is : 40 FF XK 24 E 3 1
My question is on the date. 24 for day of the month, E for May. However A-M supposedly designates 1955-56 with N-Z designating vehicles from 1957.
My car is definitely a 1957, not 1955. Any ideas on why the data plate doesn't seem to line up?
My first post here, thank you in advance for your answers!
40 = BodyLooking to buy my first 1957 tbird. I'm also having trouble decoding the data
plate. One of the cars I'm considering has following info
BODY: 40
COLOR: AA
TRIM: XA
PRODUCTION CODE: 6M130508P