Hi everyone,
My '68 Olds 442 convertible has a VIN of 344678M------ and a body code number on the cowl tag of 68-33667 LAN (Lansing I assume). Based on the VIN, I assume it is a true Olds 442... correct? Was the body number assigned at a different time and was it normal practice that the body number did not match the first five digits of the VIN on 442's? Did it ever? Always is a point of discussion among car enthusiast about numbers matching on a 442.

Thanks,
Phil

 

Yes, based on the VIN, your car is a '68 442 convertible built at Lansing. There is no correlation between the VIN and the body number on the cowl tag for 442s or any other Oldsmobile. The cowl tag body number is not decode-able. If you post a photo of the cowl tag, the numbers and letters can be decoded to give more information about your car.

 

Super... I have attached a picture of the cowl tag on my '68 442.

Look forward from hearing back from you.
Phil

 

06D = build date = 4th week (D) of June (6), and that would be June 1968, so this car was built relatively late in the model year.

68 = model year
3 = Oldsmobile
36 = Cutlass (your car is 442 based on the VIN, but the cowl tags didn't reflect this that year)
67 = convertible body style
LAN = Lansing assembly plant
432654 = Fisher Body sequence number
TR949 = this would give you the interior color and seat type, but I don't have 949 in my decoder, so perhaps someone else here will have it
Paint F = lower body color = "teal frost"
Paint 1 = convertible top color = white

 

Great! Thank you so much for the breakdown. And yes, the 949 is a strange interior code. I found it hidden in a web site. It stands for Teal bucket seat interior.

Thanks again,
Phil

 

Forgot to ask... was there a year when the body number correlated to the VIN on an Olds 442?

Phil

 

949 is the interior color and front seat type...which breaks to teal in color with bucket seats.

The body number is actually the number just to the left of "BODY" on your trim tag.

The number to the right of "ST" is the "style" number, 68 33667, which gives the year, GM division (3=Oldsmobile), model series (36=Cutlass V8, and body type (67=convertible).

For '68 and I believe '69, Lansing just used the Cutlass V8 designation of 36 for the style number. The other assembly plants varied, with most going to 44. By the 1970 model year, all used 44 in the trim tag.

Randy C.

 

Thank you Randy. Looks like you have solved the mystery.

Phil

 

Phil, You are not allowed to post here, then make us drool and not upload pictures! LOL...Sounds like a nice color combo. Pics please.

 

This comes up about every couple of months. It is very well documented that for the 1968 and 1969 model year only, Olds used Cutlass cowl tags (36xx body code) on real 442s. Most 1968 cars and many 1969 cars came this way, and Lansing built cars were most often built this way. Here's a page from the factory Parts Book that talks about it.

 

No, no, and no. There was never any year that the body number corresponded to anything for any Oldsmobile, 442 or not. Forget the body number. It means nothing. Nada. Zilch. No one has ever been able to determine anything from a body number, and the people who might have ever been able to are long dead and the records that could have told us what the body number means are buried with them.

 

The OP is talking about the body STYLE number (or Fisher Body model code in the table I posted), as in 3687, with normally would correspond to the second through fifth characters of the VIN, EXCEPT on the 1968-69 442s. You are talking about the Fisher Body sequential build number, which is different and does not correspond.

 

I'm glad you can read his mind because I can't. He's been calling it the body number since the beginning, and since there is a BDY on the cowl tag, which stands for "body" and which refers to the meaningless collection of digits to the left of it, I assumed that that's what he's talking about. Silly me.

What he's talking about, apparently, is as you say, the STYLE number. That's what the "ST" at the beginning stands for. If it was a "body style number," a term which no one uses, it would be BST!


Let's use the '64 cowl tag as an example. See? To the left, "STYLE". To the right "BODY." Nowhere on there is there something called "body style." Ugh!

 

Yes, I can read his mind, because the question is about the 1968-69 442s that have Cutlass cowl tags. His post also specifically says "body CODE number", which is the Fisher Body model code (which is exactly the term on the page I posted from the Oldsmobile parts book, so SOMEBODY uses it), not the sequential build number.

 

Ok... since you asked, attached is a picture of our 442. The color should be the lighter Teal Frost (code F) but the previous owner changed it (and did a beautiful job) to the darker Teal Blue Metallic (Code L). We really like the color with the white convertible top and teal interior so we are keeping it this way.

Thanks everyone for your great help!
Phil

 

Very nice Phil.

 

Yes everyone... I incorrectly called it a body number when actually I was referring to the Style number which follows after the "ST". Sorry for any confusion or conflict I caused. Thank you for setting me straight.

Phil