Fumblin, one more little correction of a previous overcorrection. LQ is the prefix for 1929 only (1.5-ton). The early 1930 1.5-ton prefix is LR.
Im4racin brought up an important point about the month coding. It was news to me. As far as I can tell, the letter codes for the months began in '46 (whether '46 first or second isn't clear). All previous used the 2 digit month number.
I'm still a little confused about the '41-'46 war production month coding. The Vehicles of Victory site says in one place that '42 started with 01=January, and in another it says '42 started with 13=January. It gives an example with month 32=August '43 (which would be for month 01 in '41 and 13 in '42). That would mean Im4racin's truck, with a build month of 28, would really be a '43, not a '44, but there were no civilian trucks built in '43 (see below). I think it makes the most sense assuming '42 began with month 01, since '42 does have its own set of prefixes different from the '41 prefixes, and Im4racin's number would seem to back that up too.
Here\'s a site that has lots of nice info for U.S. and Canadian Chevy cars, trucks, and military vehicles. Digging through all that info, I found that "after February 1942, all GM production was devoted to military contracts .... Then, with the requirements of the military being satisfied ..., from 1 January 1944 until 31 August 1945, 1942-style civilian trucks were started to be built in small numbers..." Also, elsewhere on that site, I found production dates that corroborated the dates I mentioned earlier. Apparently, there was production overlap between '46 first and second designs, as well as between '46 and '47.
Speaking of military vehicles, should the VIN cruncher include them? They have their own sets of prefixes different from the civilian trucks.
