Referring to the guy who called me the other night with the twin to my panel. (See the thread "Thank You Stovebolt")
Here's the previous post with some corrections and clarification...
So here is what I think I have learned from him about my VIN.
According to him, his truck (and mine I'm guessing, since they are modified identically and were the same original color) was a fuel tanker at an airport. It was never titled or licensed to be on the road. He still does not have a title for his. Apparently someone went to the trouble to get a title for mine. He still has his VIN plate (mine is gone) and read the number off to me. His VIN is:
5ES-A2217
SFSD165S is the VIN on my title.
According to the books I have:
First character is assembly plant. 5 = Kansas City
Second character is model year E = 1947
Third character is model series S = 3800
Fourth character is assembly month A = Jan, D = April
According to the VIN book, the last six are sequential numerals. According to this guy, they did not use leading zeros, so a VIN with only four digits is more likely than a VIN with six that first model year.
SO... I'm guessing the correct VIN for my truck is:
5ES-D1655
I think the first and last digits are supposed to be 5 not S, and I think the F for the model year is supposed to be E. I believe the old VIN plate was corroded enough by the time that this vehicle was retired from service, that it was hard to read. Back then, these VIN plates were just photo-etched aluminum templates with hand stamped numbers.
So the only thing I can't explain is why his last four digits, (the sequence number) is higher than mine, while his truck was built in January and mine in April. Could it be that mine is really a '48? It is titled as a '47. Could it be that they built '47s on into January of 1948?
Does anyone know how the sequential numbers went? Take a look at your VIN plates on those early AD trucks, post them in here and let's do some comparing. I would like to see if the sequence numbers are different for different models (ie, 3100 pickup built in January with 5 digit sequence would mean that they issued the sequential numbers uniquely for each model type.) Am I making sense? Anyway, let's examine some VINs and see what we can learn.
