Greetings Classic Olds Forum. I am new to this forum. Not new to auto restoration. Been working on and restoring cars, trucks, tractors, heavy equipment for almost 4 decades now. Got my first ever Oldsmobile project for my 50th bday. It's a 71 convertible as far as I can tell. Was someone else's project who doesn't actually work on cars but pays to get um restored. Was a 455 car. Guy was ready to scrap it out after he paid a body shop $2500 to start it and the shop closed down about half done with metal work. I bought car hoping to bring it back. Got a 68 rocket eng and trans to go in it. Here's a pic of body tag. Any info would be helpful from tag. I tried pics my apologies if they didn't show properly

 

Welcome to the site, post some pictures when you get a chance.

 

Welcome aboard! I see you live in the upside down world. Must have posted that pic from your cell phone?



Anyway - here's what it means..
ST71 - 1971 model year production
3 - Olsmobile division
42 - Model: Cutlass Supreme
67 - Body style: Convertible
LAN - Body shell produced at Lansing Fisher Body Works
BDY 224971 - Body number
TR 979 - Interior trim: Sienna, front seat is the A65 bench with center armrest
PNT 67 A - Paint code: 67 = Sienna color body, A = White convertible top
12B - Time build code at fisher. Second week of December, 1970

EDIT: the cowl tag and VIN are unrelated.

 

Welcome. The only way to get a 455 in a Cutlass Supreme in the 1971 model year was with the SX package (option Y79). These are somewhat rare, so if the car really was a factory 455 car, consider trying to find the correct engine for it. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell from the VIN or cowl tag if the car was a factory SX or not. The build sheet would be the only proof, and these were not always left in the car. Good luck with it.

 

Just curious. How do you know it was a 455 car if it doesn't have the original engine? Did the original owner provide documentation? Just haing SX badges on the fenders isn't really conclusive since they are reproduced parts now.

Don't get the wrong idea, I'm really hoping this was an original SX.

 

I keep running every cowl I see to test my decoder and when doing this one, and interesting point came up. This was assembled the second week of December. What is the cutoff in dates to say that, in this case, a 1971 was assembled in 1970? If there is a good way of doing this, I want to add some logic to my queries to account for this...if possible.

 

Model year changeover on the assembly line was typically in late July/early August. 1971 model year production ran from late Aug or Sept 1970 through June or early July 1971.

 

IMO the cowl tag provides that information for you Chris. It's done with the model year designator ST. If the model year is 70 and the month of production is 07/08 -12 of 69, or 01-06/07 of 70 that would apply to pretty much all the model production start/finishes. I think we've tried before to establish what the production cutoff and start dates were but only came out with 'generalities' from folks that had worked the lines back in the day. I'm guessing that retooling must have had a fudge factor of a week or two overall to get the model year production going. So it might have been 4-6 weeks from shutdown to startup again depending on which factory? I believe Lansing was the factory that got the highest priority for changeover since it produced the most cars.