VIN question - expert attention needed

[Lifsgrt]

 Were the B-bodies built in any particular order?  My '69 Charger VIN is 275000.  Thanks for your help.

[Dodge Don]

The sequence number represents the build sequence number for that assembly plant for that model year. Unless the assembly plant only built one model then all you know is that you were 275000th car down the assembly line at that plant. There is always debate about cars build dates and cars pulled off the line for this or that but the above is pretty standard. Unless you have 100001 or the last car then the sequence number is of no general importance (other than being your VIN) .

[69CoronetRT]

Were the B-bodies built in any particular order?  My '69 Charger VIN is 275000.  Thanks for your help.

I have read that the cars were actually mixed up by body style and model as they went down the line to help with inventory control. The VIN is more of an administrative function than production. They did not go down the line in sequence.

[Alaskan_TA]

They did not go down the line in sequence.

I agree.

[Ghoste]

Having worked in auto assembly, I can virtually guarantee it.  I have never seen VIN's assigned in anything but a seemingly random order from a line point of view.

[Dodge Don]

I do not agree that they are random. If that was true then cars built early would have high VINs and late build cars with low VINs. It is called a sequence number for a reason......yes they did not come down the line 100% in sequence but as a general rule I still believe it applies.

[Alaskan_TA]

The VIN numbers were sequentially assigned, but not sequentially built.

At some plants as an example, 200533 to 200893 may all be Charger VINs. 200894 to 201678 may all be Dart VINs. This would be a good example of how Hamtramck worked in 1969

(the numbers are ficticious & used as an example only)

Lynch Road on the other hand may have a 4-door, followed by a station wagon followed my a Hemi two door. Things appear to be much more random from there. But, there are also groups of cars from there like the A12 cars and Superbirds that do have groups of sequential VINs applied to the same model.

You can get a general idea by looking at the lists of items I have to claim. Go to this link and browse the model year / assembly plant combinations, you will see some patterns to some of them and others that appear completely random;

http://www.hamtramck-historical.com/foundByYearPlant.shtml

[KMPX2]

I do not agree that they are random. If that was true then cars built early would have high VINs and late build cars with low VINs. It is called a sequence number for a reason......yes they did not come down the line 100% in sequence but as a general rule I still believe it applies.

The vin has nothing to do with the order in witch the cars are built. I am sitting in a Chrysler car plant right now and I can tell you that when a car body is built it is given a tracking number. Then when it is sent to paint a new tracking number is given & when the painted body goes to be finished a 3rd number is given to the car.

[Dodge Don]

I do not agree that they are random. If that was true then cars built early would have high VINs and late build cars with low VINs. It is called a sequence number for a reason......yes they did not come down the line 100% in sequence but as a general rule I still believe it applies.

The vin has nothing to do with the order in witch the cars are built. I am sitting in a Chrysler car plant right now and I can tell you that when a car body is built it is given a tracking number. Then when it is sent to paint a new tracking number is given & when the painted body goes to be finished a 3rd number is given to the car.

That is today, not 40 years ago. Again I agree that not every car came down the line in absolute sequence. There is no way to prove that they did or didn't really at this point. And again, the sequence number generally indicates build sequence...example 275000 would generally be built sometime after 274000. I would agree that bunching like cars together would make sense from a productivity perspective but for the St. Louis plant they seemed to build whatever was next down the line.....excluding the limited runs of show cars early on and late runs to get rid of parts inventory not carried over to 71.

[Alaskan_TA]

There is no way to prove that they did or didn't really at this point.

I respectfully disagree, you just need to know what to look for. 

Take the image below for example, note that the VIN ends in 100052, so it was the 52nd VIN  assigned for the Hamtramck Plant for the 1970 model year.

Now, look to the left at the number circled in green, that is the broadcast sheet sequence number, note that it is 000001.

Even though this car's VIN was the 52nd one assigned, it was very likely the very first car down the line based on the broadcast sheet sequence number.

Exibit A for the court;

[Brock Samson]

FYI:

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,16164.msg180933.html#msg180933   

[Alaskan_TA]

A story for you as well.............

I get to see a lot of broadcast sheets. Lots. I hear from a lot of folks that find the wrong one in their car too. That said, the story below is from The Challenger T/A Newsletter #15;

                                                                      2 more broadcast sheets matched up!

  Well if your memory is good you may remember a story on a T/A broadcast sheet being found for JH23J0B291xxx, the story was published in Newsletter # 8. To recap, Chuck had found the T/A sheet in his 318 convertible and sent it to me back in 2002.

Fast forward to January 31st, 2006. I received an email from Steve  in MN, he sent the fender tag codes from his T/A to me and asked if I had heard of the car before. I called him and told him that I had a broadcast sheet for it here and that it had been found in a convertible. I asked him if he had checked inside his bucket seat backs for "extra" broadcast sheets yet, and he had not but promised to do so.

He contacted me the next day and let me know that he had found a broadcast sheet for a 318 Challenger convertible and gave me the VIN. I called Chuck just to check, because I did not know what his VIN was. Chuck went out to the car and read the number off to me, it was a match! People find broadcast sheets for other cars all the time, but this is the first instance that I am aware of where each person had found the other persons sheet. They are going to swap sheets, and they both should have them by the time you all read this! Yahoo!

OK, cool story, (I deleted last names and did the xxx thing on the VIN.)  Each car had a broadcast sheet for the other car inside the bucket seat backs. Here are some more details.

The Convertibles VIN was 8883 lower than the T/A VIN.

The Convertible Scheduled Production Date (SPD) was 12 days earlier than the T/As SPD.

The broadcast sheet sequnce numbers were only 5 numbers apart.

Both cars were N95 cars, so it is possible that for whatever reason they were building the N95 cars in a group regardless of SPD or VIN sequence.

So, the proof that these cars were built out of sequence at times is there. I bet you find some other examples now that you know what to look for. 

[Dodge Don]

Barry, I think you and I are coming at this from different perspectives. The Hamtramck sheet supports your perspective however the St. Louis assembly plant sheets clearly demonstrate there is no correlation between the sequence number on the sheet vs. build sequence. We are simply looking at two different plants with apparently two different methods. Interesting that they wouldn't follow a consistent methodology.

Today inventory management is done in a "just in time" fashion managed by computers inter-connected with suppliers and inventory management and accounting programs (among others). This was not the case 40 years ago and they absolutely would have needed to know what was going to be coming down the line in advance to ensure component availability. For Hamtramck it appears they were using the sequence number on the sheet as you noted, however for St. Louis there is only one consistent sequence method, that being the VIN sequence. As an example, just for the 70 Charger alone (not counting other models made at same time) there were over 18 different engine assembly combinations. They would not have had unlimited space in the engine assembly installation area on the line and would have needed to ensure they had the right inventory mix to meet the demands of what was coming down the line.

There were multiple copies of  70 St. Louis sheets, the ones most folks see do not have any other numeric reference numbers, however there were additional copies that had a red number running sideways in the upper right corner. These numbers too do not correlate to a build sequence. They, like the sequence number on the sheet, are wildly random in nature.

Inputting the data to create the broadcast sheets must have been a mind numbing job. I'm sure you probably see the same types of keying errors I do on sheets. The most common mistake I see is where a character is missed or 2 characters are typed over eachother causing the entire line to be off one position making the codes unreadable to the casual observer.

Anyways, perhaps this is beccause St. Louis was pumping out B bodies (Chargers, Road Runners, GTX, Belvederes, Sattelites, Coronets and Super Bees) and not E and A bodies as well? There are notriceable gaps in the 70 Charger VIN assignments where the other B body VINs show up which supports the concept of bunching like cars down the line for productivity purposes however this further supports the theory that St. Louis was using the VIN sequence number as the line order. The gaps are typically about 500-600 VINs then the Charger VINs start up again for about 400-500 then gap then Chargers then gap etc etc. Looks like they were pumping out about 1000 cars per day.

[1972Rallye]

Maybe I'll throw my 2 cents in here as well.  This info is from my Dad who worked at Dodge Main (Hamtramck Assembly)...

VINs were generated by computer when the orders came into the plant.  The computer also generated a data card (commonly called IBM cards) with all the vehicle codes needed to build the car based on the order.  This data card is what generated the broadcast sheets used on the line and the fender tags.

There was a group in an office generating the production for each shift. The schedulers would have boxes of these IBM cards organized in the groups based on models/options (4 door, 2 door, convertible, A/C, vinyl, etc.)  He would then start pulling cards for the days production. They were only allowed to build so many A/C cars in a row; so many 4 door cars in a row; 2 door cars; convertables, etc.  This was mostly to keep the workers from having too many high-optioned (assembly intensive) cars in a row, which could slow the line down and generate assembly problems.  It also helped with inventory management.  There was no corelation to either the VIN or order number.  The cars were built based the order the IBM cards were pulled from the box and sent to broadcast.

It is very possible the St. Louis grouped their 2 door / 4 door vehicle production for their own purposes.  In this scenario, Chargers might have been built sequentially with regard to the VIN.  They would have had to assign VINs in groups as well, but it was possible. There was no one corporate system that all plants had to follow (Lynch Rd. fender tags is another example of this).