Recently, aaron65 provided a very good example of how to decode the fender tag on his Pontiac and Dodge. In an effort to provide information as broad as possible, let’s jaunt over to Dearborn to see how things were done back in the day.
Using a handy example, let’s examine this 1963 Ford Galaxie that we’ve seen on occasion.
Open the driver’s door and you’ve found the location of the Galaxie’s data plate. Unlike contemporary and later GM and Chrysler products, Ford used just this single tag to tell an owner all about their car. Nothing under the hood, no second plate mounted elsewhere – just this. Like anything else, there are advantages and disadvantages.
Here’s a closer look at the data plate. It provides both the serial number (saying “VIN Number” is redundant) and various other attributes about the car. The one distinct disadvantage in having a date plate such as this is not having a specific listing of what options the car received during its manufacture. If any “build sheet” exists within the car, I have yet to find it.
As some ’80s rap singer would say, let’s break it down!
Let’s start with the serial number, or what the data plate refers to as the Vehicle Warranty Number:
3Z62X135511
The first digit, 3, is the model year. Hopefully anyone would not encounter this as a challenge, as hopefully this car wouldn’t be confused with being a 1950s or 1970s model.
The Z is where the car was assembled; in this case St. Louis. The letter designations for the various Ford plants spanned from A to Z, but obviously there wasn’t a plant for each letter.
The third and fourth digit, 62, is the designation for trim and body. In this case, it is a Galaxie 500 four-door Town Sedan. The trim numbers for a Galaxie 500, in all iterations, ranged from 61 (for the two-door Club Sedan) to 66 (for the two-door hardtop fastback).
X is the engine code for the two-barrel 352 cubic inch (5.8 liter) V8. Other engines were the 223 straight six (5 for retail, E for taxi); the 390 V8 (Z for retail, P for police interceptor); and the top dog 427 V8 (Q for four-barrel and R for two four-barrels). While the 260 and 289 V8s were available in the Galaxie, it was not easy to discern which codes were meant for cars other than the Galaxie.
The last six digits are the production number, starting with 100001, making my Galaxie the 35,511th car down the assembly line in St. Louis that year.
The information along the top line drills down to much more detail.
Body: 54A
This denotes the car is a Galaxie 500 four-door sedan. It does seem to overlap the “62” for trim and body in the warranty number. Other possible numbers would be 76A for a Galaxie 500 convertible or 54B for a Galaxie (non 500) four-door sedan. In general, the Galaxie 500 bodies have an “A”, the fleet level 300 an “E”, while the Galaxie (non 500) and Galaxie XL have a variety of singular letters following the two-digit body number.
Color: I
For 1963, I = Champagne Iridescent
This color sample, a screenshot from www.tpocr.com, shows the wide variety of colors one could get on their Galaxie in 1963. This website has been invaluable for information presented in this article.
Trim: 98
Having a red interior with a champagne colored car would be rather unsightly; the 98 refers to the gold colored vinyl for the interior of my Galaxie.
Date: 7F
The letter is for the month; A for January, B for February, and so forth. The number is the day of the month, so my Galaxie was built on June 7.
I had no clue until now this car was built on a Friday.
DSO:
DSO is an acronym for Domestic Special Order. Looking around various websites gives all sorts of diverging information, so I thought it best to utilize the 1962/1963 Ford Shop Manual. Can you get more reliable than that? According to the shop manual:
So my Galaxie was just another ordinary unit ran down the production line, which makes sense given it is a four-door sedan.
Axle: 5
Non-locking axles had ratios ranging from 3.00:1 (Axle 1) to 4.11:1 (Axle 9). Mine is mid-range with a ratio of 3.50:1.
Transmission: 2
Ford offered five different transmissions for the Galaxie in 1963 – a true sign of how things were much different back then. Transmission 1 was a conventional three-speed; Transmission 2 was a three-speed with overdrive. Beyond that, the number Ford assigned to the transmission was one greater than the number of gears, with 3 for the two-speed Ford-o-matic, 4 for the three-speed Cruise-o-matic, and 5 for the four-speed manual.
Hopefully this helps navigate around the unique elements that were Ford coding practices in the early 1960s.
Note: As stated earlier, the website www.tpocr.com was a terrific resource when researching this article.
Very nice .
Easy to understand now thanx to you =8-) .
-Nate
I’d take either the 3 spd. Cruise-o-Matic or the 4 spd. manual transmission.
Automotive number-crunching is always fun. I didn’t know Hazelwood built Fords that far back. I always thought ’65 was the first year they built something other than Mercs.
Speaking of Mercury, their 1963 VIN sequence started with 500001, meaning the Galaxie was the 35,510th ’63 FORD to come out of Hazelwood. That number sure seemed awfully low for a June build at a plant that big, and that’s probably why.
The Hazelwood plant is starting to intrigue me. In researching this I found an index card where I had long ago deciphered the numbers for a base model ’62 Galaxie I once had (built in Dallas). For 1962, there were no Galaxies built in Hazelwood (as per the Ford Shop Manual) but it was online the next year to build mine.
Here’s one for you…the last two cars built in Hazelwood before the Aerostar conversion. January 25, 1985,,,,,
So I’m guessing production of these two then moved to St. Thomas, Ontario? Years ago I took a tour at St. Thomas and they stated they built these on the same line (at least for a while) as the Escort.
I know my grandparents’ ’89 CV was built there…Canadian government safety sticker on the driver’s door.
When I was learning to drive, my father had a 64 Country Squire with a 289 and “three on the tree” but with overdrive. My sister had a 53 Plymouth with Powerflite. I knew the Powerflite was a bit ancient by the mid 60s, and thought the 3 speed manual in a wagon was a bit odd.
I would guess at least the 2 speed automatic transmission was gone by 1963, and the 3 speed manual with overdrive was gone by 65 or 66 ?
BTW, I went on AutoTrader.Com looking for a 65 Ford (my preferred year, followed by the 63 and 61) and the 65 must be a very rare year by now.
The two-speed had to be on its way out by 1963, if not its last year. Even then, I think it was only available on the six-cylinder and base V8 models. A few years ago I saw a great looking ’63 300 with a six-cylinder and the two-speed, the only one like it I’ve seen.
The 3speed overdrive is listed in my ’65 Galaxie shop manual, and code three has been replaced by code 6 for the C4 trans.
I’m quite sure that Ford’s new three-speed with syncro 1st gear was never available with O/D. If O/D was ordered, it came with the Warner T-86/89 transmission, with non-syncro first.
For that matter, I believe that was the case earlier too, that if one ordered O/D, it only came with the Warner box, and not the Ford box. The O/D unit was of course Borg-Warner, so I believe the two came as a combo.
Howard, I would be surprised if that Powerflite Plymouth was a 53. It didn’t show up on Chryslers and Imperials until 54.
Chrysler discontinued the Powerflite after 1961.
The ABC’s of CC! Love it! Bookmarking this one for future reference. All I need now is a car. Great post, Jason.
I had no idea what Hazelwood built prior to the 80s…hadn’t really thought about it. I seem to recall Aerostars, then later Explorers, rolling out the gate.
Hazelwood opened in 1948 and built big Mercurys exclusively until, as I learned today thanks to Jason, the ’63 model year. (I’d always thought it was later) They continued to build full-size cars (with Mercurys vastly outnumbering Fords) into the Panther years. They converted to the Aerostar (Hazelwood was the sole source) in the fall of ’85.
As it turns out, Dearborn stopped building big Fords after 1961 (converted to Fairlanes and later the Mustang) and moved them to Wayne and Hazelwood which had been under L-M division control pre-McNamara.
“Other engines were the 223 straight six (5 for retail, E for taxi)” Wonder what the difference was between these two engines?
The taxi engine had a number of HD parts; comparable to a (real) truck engine. Same with the police engines. They were designed for lots of heavy use and high engine loads, which the regular engines really weren’t.
If Ford’s police-spec engines were like Mopars, then they were also assembled to tighter tolerances than the typical engines, or “blueprinted” as it’s sometimes referred.
For your reading pleasure
Interesting, thanks for sharing that Jason. You mentioned the numbers for various gear ratios for a non-locking differential. How would one tell if the car came with a locking diff?
> The last six digits are the production number, starting with 100001, making my Galaxie the 35,510th car down the assembly line in St. Louis that year.
Since the numbering started with ‘1’ and not ‘0’ in the least significant digit, wouldn’t your car be the 35,511th car down the line?
Thanks for the catch; I’ll correct it. Oddly, I had amended that typo in a proofread, but apparently it didn’t take.
Each gear setup has it’s on code. For example a 2.75 open rear end could have a “2” as the axle code, while a locking 2.75 would be “K”.
See this page for an example of axle codes:
http://grantorinosport.org/72torino07.htm
That opening picture is great.
I feel like it should be the beginning of a movie. I’m picturing the main character walking into the shot, removing his coat & tie and putting them in the back seat with his briefcase, before driving off to start the plot. Just not sure if he is a detective, a politician, or a reporter.
My first thought on that picture was of Andy and Barney visiting the State Capitol.
Nah, it’s Barney’s ride from when he left Mayberry to join the NCSBI. The newbie always gets the old beater!
Suburban St Louis county have two huge lots with for sale signs in front One is the old
Chrysler plant the other the ford plant pictured above. I think Dad was an inspector in
1966 he was in the body shop there for 30 years What a strange feeling to see that
today when you drive down Lindbergh! To think that is what put bread on the table
starting in 1948.
A high official of the Hazelwood plant lived down the street from us As kids, every August we would see him come home in the next years Mercury, either a Monterrey, or a Park Lane, and always in a shade of Blue. I always thought they only built big Mercs there, never knew until today that big Fords were run down the line as well. another interesting note. If you lived in the St. Louis area, you would be contacted and invited to come to the plant and watch your car being built. Though you could not take delivery.
In a way, the Ford tag is more informative than GM’s. At least it tells you the original drivetrain. I still have my Mustang’s door tag memorized from when I was a kid, as I decoded that car when I was probably 12.
The DSO blank is interesting. The Mustang books list DSO as “District Sales Office,” and most Mustangs have a number there. Mine is “35” for Lansing, MI. I wonder why they changed that over the course of two years, maybe so they wouldn’t have to reprint plates! 🙂
It makes me wonder.
There were DSO codes, all one or two digit, for special order cars in 1963. However, it covered sales office, government order, or special order such as the few light weight ’63 cars. Examples I found online had two- and four-digit codes later on during the 60s.
Perhaps a change of methodology occurred around 1965???
” Examples I found online had two- and four-digit codes later on during the 60s. ”
I missed this earlier. The four digit DSO codes are probably the DSO #. When a dealer would make an order for a car, weather for a customer order or its own stock it will fill out a order sheet. A corresponding four digit DSO # is assigned to reference that particular order since the car has no VIN as it has not been produced. The DSO numbers usually are sequential and only apply specifically to that DSO. For example #1234, would be the 1234 order made in that DSO for that year.
As far as I know, DSO is “District Sales Office” and it does indicate what sales office originally ordered the car. My only guess as to why it’s blank on this car is that perhaps it was a “Basic” order. This would be a car that built because it has excess capacity on an assembly line and produces vehicles to keep the plant busy. So if that were the case no specific dealer would have ordered it and not DSO would have been assigned.
For further info here is a page on 1963 Ford data plates and it has a Galaxie plate as an example with a DSO code.
http://www.tpocr.com/fordbp3.html
For the ultimate in Ford data, Marti Works has the best reports. They can tell you everything about your old Ford from 1967-2007, including options, built date, build stats for specific options and even reproduce data plates, window stickers, etc. I have one for my old Ford and it was worth every penny even though my car is fully documented.
Here is an example on this page:
http://www.martiauto.com/itemselection.cfm?item=REP-2#image