Hey guys, sorry, I was in San Antonio on business this week, I just got in. And to boot, American Airlines lost my bag, I suspect they put it on the carousel in Dallas, anyway, Sorry it's taken me so long to get back with you, but I see you've already done some sleuthing.
I spoke at length with Bill (previous owner) about the tag. He's claiming that the riveted tags (later years) are bigger and you can't rivet in a tag if it's been screwed. I have had the tag off and there's no way the holes were modified. That's not to say that somebody has made up a new body tag for it, but who knows. My tag on my 49 pickup looked this good too when I bought it. Bill has owned this truck and the title for 20 years prior to me purchasing it, and also knew the previous owner. He said he would see if he still had his information to reach out to him, but you guys saw the picture of it sitting in the desert where he purchased it. That's not to say it hasn't been modified, but the entire thing has me perplexed.
To answer some of the previous questions, I took out the original engine and didn't make reference of the numbers, I knew the head had been changed, and didn't reference the block. (Too bad now). The radiator was gone when I bought it. It was a column shift, and I'm not certain of knob color.
It's going to be titled as a 51. I had no other option unless I wanted to contest it, which could have meant months or no title at all. Honestly, it doesn't really matter to me because I'll keep this truck forever and give it to my son (documented) but I wanted to know about the year
