FISHER BODY NUMBER PLATES
FISHER BODY NUMBER PLATES ANALYSIS
GENERAL DECODING
Atlanta, Georgia (ATL)
Baltimore, Maryland (BAL)
Flint, Michigan (FL1)
Framingham, Massachusetts (FRA)
Fremont, California (BF)
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI (KAN)
Oshawa, Ontario
[ Atlanta ] | [ Baltimore ] | [ Flint ] | [ Framingham ] | [ Fremont ] | [ Kansas City ] | [ Oshawa ]
Kansas City final assembly plant trim tags were fairly straightforward with 4 lines of information and consistent throughout the model year and are very similar to the Framingham trim tags.
The first information line has the body assembly date consisting of the month as a 2-character number and a single letter (A…E) designating the week. When the month is a single digit month (January through September) the month number is padded with a leading zero (0) such as 01, 02, 03, etc. This body date is embossed below the GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION stamping. In the examples, 12A is the 12th month (December) and “A” represents the 1st week and 04C is the 4th month (April) and "C" represents the 3rd week. The 4-character number is obviously some internal plant tracking code but to date it has not turned up on any paperwork so it's significance is unknown.
The second information line contains the abbreviation ST (for Style) followed by the model year (66), a hyphen and the Fisher Body style number. Next is the designation for the plant location, KAN for Kansas City, and the Fisher Body unit number followed by BODY. It should be noted that the Fisher Body style number (13667 for a Malibu convertible in the examples) has nothing to do with the GM VIN series/model designation. That means the 13667 does not indicate a V8 engine just because the third digit is an even number. Fisher Body did not care if the car was to receive a V8 or L6 engine. In these cases a style of 13667, one cannot know from the style number if the car was built with an L6 or V8 engine. Generally, the Fisher Body unit number, 239 and 2870 in these cases, was sequential for the particular Style number.
The third information line contains the abbreviation TR (for Trim) followed by a 3-character number, a hyphen, and a letter indicating the seat type and color. The letter "A" indicates a bench seat, the letter "B" indicates a bucket seat, and the letter "S" indicates head rests. Next is a 2-character sequence indicating the exterior paint color with the lower body color represented by the first letter, a hyphen, and the upper body color represented by the second letter, and finally the word PAINT. When the second character is a number, it indicates a vinyl or convertible top color.
The fourth information line contains various letters and numbers indicating the various option groups (1 through 5) with a number for the group and letters for various options the car was ordered with within those groups. It should be noted that the first group of options does not have the number “1,” but all other groups are preceded by the numbers "2" through "5."
As with other 1966 plants, sometime around the end of January, Kansas City began punching a small hole at the bottom left of the trim tag that indicated the car had anchor provisions for the shoulder harness option RPO A85. Although I do have one 01A tag with this hole, there are several other 01A through 01C tags that do not have this hole.