'73-'74 Fast Finder Maverick VINs

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'73-'74 Fast Finder Maverick VINs - '73-'74 Fast Finder Maverick VINs

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Thanks John, that kind of thing happens far too often.

 

Those are pretty cool, Thanks!!

 

Hi Friends
I just wanted to clarify something that has come up, and that is by "sharing" this stuff, I mean that I first came across the information that was distributed 40 years ago by Ford as a service to its dealers who paid $20/month. Since that time the information has been re-assessed by FoMoCo and its distribution is now licensed, which is OK by me. It is after all, part of the FoMoCo product and I respect their right to their property. I am a loyal customer to the Ford licensee now and intend to remain one. One could go to a swap meet or eBay and buy a pile of owner's manuals and send the list of VINs to you, too.

The idea behind sharing these 20-odd pages was to show how the Ford Locator (Fast-Finder) system worked, what information was available, and also the vehicle types that dealers stocked; a history lesson. It's mind boggling to see just how many cars were actually at dealer locations, and if you are really in to the subject, you can figure out the colors/options combinations the dealers thought would sell. And keep in mind this is just one sales district (St Louis) for one month. There were 33 other sales districts doing the same thing.

J.R.

 

I figured that's why they had it. I'm interested to see if there are any 74 Grabbers like mine, or just White & Orange 73,74 Grabbers in general.

 

I'm in the process of adding 1973 Thunderbirds to my database. I have seen this situation several times already: A single dealership has 2 or even 3 Thunderbirds in stock, in the same color, with the same interior, and virtually the same option content. Keep in mind there were 23 colors from which to choose... I just ran across a set of four 1973 Thunderbirds that were new in stock at Yates-Stevens Ford in Kirkwood, Missouri --- all 4 are Dark Green Metallic (4Q), two have green leather, one has white leather, and one has green cloth interior. I was able to locate at least sixteen other 1973 Thunderbirds they had in stock at the same time, too. If you look for Dealer Code 55B013 that is Yates-Stevens... see how many Mavericks they had in stock.

Yates-Stevens was founded in 1963 by two friends; in 1981 Mr. Stevens sold his share to Mr. Yates. The business is now known as Suntrup Ford and is located 10340 Manchester Rd., Kirkwood, MO. I see they have the same phone number as they did in 1973.

Here is the PDF of dealers in the St Louis district participating in the Fast-Finder program. This is located at the Thunderbird Registry site, if you want to download/save/print, go ahead.

There is a wealth of information in these VIN lists, a lot of Ford history there for the exploring.

JR

 

This is good stuff! Thanks for sharing!!

 

Just took a quick glance. Saw one that had a VIN ending in 111111. that is pretty cool.

 

Yeah same dealer had another with 111112, both 200 engine and C4, just different colors...

 

Interesting, indeed.

Many people are surprised to learn that VINs did not/do not come off the assembly line in any kind of "order". The VIN itself is assigned upon preliminary acceptance of an order for a vehicle, irrespective of when it is planned to be built. If 2 or more cars roll of the line "in order" it is coincidence based on other factors.

When orders came in, the staff assigned VINs in strict sequence of the last six, without regard to the car series, model, engine. Like this:

3J76S100001 (a Ford Country Squire, Los Angeles plant)
3J87A100002 (a Thunderbird, LA)
3J53H100003 (a Custom 500, LA)
3J87N100004 (a Thunderbird, LA)
3J76N100005 (a Country Squire, LA)

But they were never planned to be necessarily built in that order, of course. The vehicles were, however assigned a scheduled date based on options, parts and component inventory, delivery location, and other factors.

A typical roll-out (rotation) of actual production might have been (Mavericks Kansas City plant)
3K91T102345
3K93L101999
3K92L102344


If more than one type of Ford is built at the same plant, then we might have seen -----
(Ford full-size and Thunderbirds, Los Angeles plant)
3J87A108765 Thunderbird, 460 V-8
3J76S108700 Country Squire, 400 V-8
3J87N108701 Thunderbird, 429 V-8

All Ford brand cars share the same pool of last-six, starting with 100001, at any given assembly plant. So if we examined T-birds we would know that their VINs are mixed in with Galaxies etc. at Los Angeles, however if we look at Wixom assembly every single VIN that has a last six of 100001 - 160000 (approx) are Thunderbirds because no other Fords were built at Wixom. Lincolns, however were built at Thunderbirds, concurrently for years 1958-1976, at Wixom.

So a typical rotation sequence at Wixom for 1973 might be
3Y87A101234 Thunderbird
3Y82A800999 Lincoln (sequence started at 800001)
3Y82A800777 Lincoln
3Y87N101055 Thunderbird

In several instances, Fords and Mercurys were built concurrently at the same location, as well as Edsels. It is very common today for owners of 1950s-1960s Lincolns to find build sheets in their car for a Thunderbird, and vice-versa.

Years 1960 and 1961, Comets were not a Mercury and as such had their own VIN sequence starting number. Edsels had their own starting number.

If you really want to advance to VIN Sequence Level 2, we'll talk about what they did when they introduced the Mustang, and took over production at Dearborn in March of 1964. (Mavericks had a similar situation when they were introduced) So many Mustangs were built in the first 3 years that it required a re-organization of the Ford VIN sequence starting plan, company-wide.

VIN Sequence Level 3 is about the last 1957 Thunderbirds that were being built along side 1958 Fords at Dearborn.

And finally Level 4 is about the introduction of the 1969 Continental Mark III. Here we had 1968 Lincolns and 1969 Mark IIIs being built concurrently, drawing from the same pool of VIN last-six. This was because L-M Division was determined to market the Mark III as a 1969, a.s.a.p. and build it at the time/place as the '68s. But they managed to keep things straight, perfect accounting, and is a unique situation industry-wide when it comes to VINs. It makes even the 1965 Mustang pale in comparison. It gives me a headache just thinking about it!

John

 

Zactly John, good info... I saw same when I was keeping the '68/'69 428 Fairlane registry, San Jose, Atalanta, and Kansas City cars all shared VIN sequence with other Ford carlines... Lorain was building Econolines and Cyclones/Montego so unless there was a ford product I don't know about, didn't share their sequence...

There were at least a couple changes in the '69 Fairlane/Torino production due to the up coming Maverick that was produced at KC...

 

My '76 Cougar is on the left and mom's '76 on the right. My vin ended in 37 and her's with 38. Only difference was the front/rear speaker fader turned in different direction to control the balance.