my son and i got his 71 out of the garage today .oil change,grease the front end, topped off the fliuds ,checked the tire pressure ,and took for a ride felt great!

 

Spring has sprung, the cars are coming out of hibernation. Just listen to the sounds of chirping tires.

 

How cool, a right hand drive with backwards lettering on tire and Script

 

yes allan i flipped the pic messing with the editing and posted the wrong one .nice catch!

 

For some reason when i edit the pics by flipping and spinning they come out normal when i post them, if not, they come out sideways. I guess it's because i take them with my phone.

 

It's a very nice looking car, especially in the sun! You may or may not have noticed but the passenger fender (engine shot) is from the 1970 production year. I'm guessing your sons car is an early production 71 when they were still using up the 70 inventory. What is the last 6 digits of the VIN, or maybe the Fisher production date from the cowl tag?

I'm curious, why does he have a GM door sticker on the Valve Cover?

 

yes i did notice when we bought the car last six of the vin are 141585 and the gm decal was there as well so we left it

 

So if it was a Lansing car, it should be somewhere around an August 1970 build date on the cowl tag? I know that when production started, the assembly lines really ramped up production to fill dealer inventory and customer specific orders. They could be producing a car every 45 seconds back then. Some of the info that members here (who worked in the AL) back in the day said it wasn't uncommon to run up to 20 hours a day on shifts including OT 6 days a week.

Does your car have AC or is it one with the dash with no vents? Not often we see a nice surviving post coupe.

In 1971 there were only 4512 Cutlass S sport coupes produced (6 and 8 cylinder) compared to 63,442 hardtop Cutlass S models

 

the body tag decoding says it was built the 4th week of january in 1971, if im correct. you are correct this is one of 4339 (8 cylinder) cutlass s post coupes.and it is non ac no vents

 

The cowl tag shows 01D? Is this by chance an Arlington car?

 

yes 01D lansing

 

yeah you dont see too many of these anymore back in the day they were considered the cheapies and over the years many of them met the fate of the crusher.this one was a three owner well documented 62000 mile car when we got it.here is a pic of the build sheet

 

That unfortunately is not the build sheet, it is one of the cars many broadcast cards. That was a Fisher Body works leftover from when the interior components were installed prior to going to the assembly line. The body number is fairly low considering the time date code.

 

 

Yeah I noticed that I wrote build sheet .so are you thinking that maybe those fenders are not original to the car ? I have the protecto plate would shed any light on the history of this car ?

 

I'm guessing your sons car is an early production 71 when they were still using up the 70 inventory.

I think he meant the plant was using 70 fenders until they were out of fenders. Not that your fenders are wrong or not original to the car.

 

 

Yeah I guess it's certainly possible they were still using up fenders in January .would be just another thing that makes the car unique . We've had the car for about 4 years and I'm still learning things about it .

 

Gosh no, that's not what I was saying at all. I said that it's highly likely that they were using up left over inventory of 1970 fenders on some of the early 71 models. What I'm really in a quandry about is the body number in relation to that date. What are the last 6 digits of the VIN? I'd like to see how that compares to the cowl tag.

Could someone have replaced the fenders at some time? Sure, there's no way to prove that though since your son is the third owner.

Protecto Plate will only show the vehicle ID, dealer code, miles into service and original owner. Sure, post a pic of the cowl tag and Protecto Plate, they might help solve some of the ?? here.

Curious, I asked whether it was an Arlington car and you said, yes - Lansing. What is the letter code in the VIN. Should start out like this: 336770(letter code)123456.
M - Lansing
Z - Freemont
R - Arlington
G - Framingham

 

 

Haha .yes, was answer to 01d ,but Lansing built .I should have worded it better . There is an m in the vin along with the letters lan in the body tag . I'll post all the info when I get home from work (easier on computer than this phone).and thanks for helping me decipher these numbers.

 

hey allan got all the pics tell me what you think .thanks

 

No question about it, all the evidence says it was built at Lansing in the first week of January, 1971. Car was delivered to it's first owner on April 28, 1971 with 18 miles on the odometer.

Your son has a really nice car. I just had never seen a 71 produced that late with 70 fenders. That's unique.

It's a beautiful survivor. Hope your son keeps it that way for a long time.

 

thanks for the info allan he says hes keeping it forever it was his first car at the age of 17 i wish i was that lucky