p518

It goes like this:

ST 70 34477LAN205212 BDY

TR 934 55 55 PNT

088 B65

There is a rivet in front of the 088.

I know this is a Lansing built car. That was easy. Obviously, a 1970 post 442 car.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks.

Allan R

ST 70 is the model year 1970
3-Oldsmobile division of GM
44-model, 442
77-body style sports coupe aka post coupe
LAN-body assembled at Lansing Fisher Body Works
BDY 205212-body number assigned by FBW. Not related to VIN
TR 934- Gold interior with A51 Strato Bucket seats
PNT 55 55- Galleon Gold lower/upper body color
088 , I think this is wrong. Likely 06B based on body number. Produced second week of June 1970.

p518

Thanks for the quick response. All seems to match what I was looking at yesterday. You are correct and I was wrong on the 088. It is actually 08B.

I appreciate the help.

Allan R

Can't be 08B with that body number. 08B can only be for early production cars. Factories shut down in late June to retool and started up in late July for next year model runs. All production lines started with body 000001, which makes your car the 202511 th one produced for that model year. Not possible even at Lansing. Look again, it's either a 5 or 6.

p518

I cannot help but agree with what you are saying. However, I have two pictures of the tag on my phone and even with my old eyes, I swear the number is 08B. Furthermore, that B65 looks more like a B85, now that I have zoomed in.

Don't know what to say and don't know what this all means.

Was it possible to 'typo' a stamped body tag??

1969w3155

No. Post your pic of the body tag, it will be a big help.

p518

Try this:

Allan R

No question that is 08B.
BTW that B85 code is wide belt line moldings. They're not all that common and are special on the post coupes because of the door pillars and quarter glass surround.

In 1970 there were only 1688 442 post coupes produced, and of that number only 262 were W30's.

p518

Wide belt line molding? That's interesting. Not sure what I should have eye-balled, there. I knew about the 1688 number on post 442's. This one is not a W-30. This car is for sale and I probably have first right of refusal. It is not anywhere near 100% original, but, a nice car. Has some things I don't care for and the main one is what this guy thinks it might be worth, based on what he has spent on it.

I have a thread going on ROP about this car under Hypothetical 442. I made my last post yesterday evening. Below is an older photo of it. Thanks again for your help.

GAOldsman

This is an August 1969 build. I have a pic of a '70 34477 broadcast card with a build date of 11/25. It has body # 307476 also assembled in Lansing.

Allan R

Well that helps Scot, but it's still got me a bit perplexed. It seemed really high on the body number to be an early build to me. I know Lansing ramped up production even more than other factories to get the production quotas out for dealership inventories, but even with that kind of production running 2 shifts (including weekends) that number seems really high. Even without calculations there's no way on Gods earth they would produce 202,000 bodies in a month. This HAS to be a mis-stamp on the cowl, and likely should be a 5 or 6. I'd love to see if the sticker on the drivers side door is still intact and shows the same information. I'd be really curious to know what the VIN is. It should start out 344770M but I'm leaning toward the last 6 digits being 1XXXXX instead of 2XXXXX. I looked at my 72 for comparison on this and it's an April build of 72 which is 8 months after the build date sequence of this 70 442. It's also a Lansing body and is 442325 and VIN ends 208783. That's quite a big difference from what's on the discussion here, and 72 was a relatively high production year for Cutlass models. Can you see why it didn't make sense to me?

p518

I tried very hard to read the VIN on the dash and took pictures of it, but it was hard to see due to the angle of the sun/time of day and how faded it was. I was barely able to make out the first part of which you have stated as 34477...

Allan R

Post a pic of it anyway. Maybe I can enhance it on my puter and figure it out.

p518

Yeah, well... here's the thing. I just looked at the two shots I took and apparently both of them missed the VIN completely. Did get a pic. of the dash-pad, however. Sorry.



I just got called by the owner and I think he would take $10K for it. I won't give that much because I'm cheap and it needs more work than I am willing to do as I already have two other ongoing Olds projects. I'll get another look at it one of these days.

GAOldsman

Got me "perplexed" as well there Al, at least the high body #. But this IS the body # and not the VIN. Therefore I believe the VIN is going to be super low regardless.

Allan R

Yup, I get that part Scot. But when Fisher cobbles together A bodies the numbers aren't sequential with B/C cars, right? And it takes roughly 3-4 days to put a body together before it gets send to Lansing production.....I realize the VINs are sequential on the final assembly line, regardless of car line because that's a line schedule, but the Fisher body factories would need to drive their workers to exhaustion to get this kind of number (assuming June 30 shutdown and July 20 startup. I'm just having a hard time with that being the 202512nd A body put together at Lansing Fisher that year.

Allan R

D'ohhhh. I just realized that I was looking at the cowl tag wrong. They start at 000001 each model year. So that even further compounds the mystery of why this 442 would have such a huge body number for an early production car...

Also throw this into the equation - the 1970 model year likely would have taken a lot longer to retool the factories because of the significant changes to the body styles, panels, hoods etc, and some interior parts.

I need to go back and change my previous info....

joe_padavano

Actually, they start at 100001 each model year.

Allan R

No, That's the VIN. Body numbers don't match VINs

joe_padavano

DOH! Sorry. You wrote "cowl tag" and I read "VIN".

GAOldsman

Things that make you go Hmmm? Maybe a super late special order because it is triple gold, and didn't get put out until Aug '70? Maybe that number was skipped in Sept/Oct '69? One way to tell is the driver's side door sticker like this



Other ways are with date coded iron. All of the original iron is date coded.

Allan R

Scot, you're making me think Hmmmm, wutchu upto?? I don't see how a cowl tag with that build date could be a late Aug 70 build. If it was built in Aug of 70 it would be a 71 model brother.

Skipped a number? Who would even know or go back to check? Sorry but I'm not buying that one either.

The door sticker is a good idea, I did think of that too but no guarantee it's even still on the car. If it matches the August 69 date closely though, what then?

The mystery continues....

Paladin31

Allan I agree on all your points, the '2' at beginning of sequence isn't unique. I have an 1970 442 08B car... that was the youngest I had seen...until this. mine is 208087

Brett

Allan R

That's the first bit of information that supports the OPs cowl tag mystery. Was your car a Lansing build too? I'm particularly curious why the body number appears to be so high.

Paladin31

I shouldn't even say this, as it's totally unsupported. But I seem to recall something about the cowl tag using in that year. First digit significance as to body line.

Yes my car is Lansing built, I also have a letter from Olds Heritage backing up the vin, cowl, and broadcast card. 8-18-69 ( iirc) built. Four thousandth car (approx) built.

Allan R

Excellent!

Not sure how the body line theory would work after the 99999 car was built though

GAOldsman

The Lansing Fisher plant must have started the sequence at 200001, that would explain it. Unless someone has a Lansing built car with body # of 199999 or less.

Allan R

Scot, you and Brett make excellent points. I looked at some other Lansing tags from 1970 and the body numbers go up to the 400000s. BUT, and I'm being cautious about this, I'll accept that there was an anomalous body sequencing at Lansing till we can find proof that it's wrong. To further compound the mystery is that other Olds production plants show typical 000001 production numbers. I guess we all know that not all production plants worked the same....