1969 SS 396

Fisher Body Number Plate - Kansas City, Missouri Assembly Plant (KAN)

Kansas City did not make a distinction between an inline 6-cylinder engine and a V8 engine with the style number. This means that whether a Malibu sport coupe was to be built with an inline 6-cylinder engine or a V8 engine, Kansas City still shows the style as 13637 on the body plate. The words/abbreviation ST (for style), KAN, BDY on the second line were consistent along with TR (for trim) and PNT on the third line. The body date, style year and number, body number, trim code, and paint codes were stamped for the specific car as it was scheduled for production. Kansas City did not use a hyphen character between the year and style number such as 69 13637 and the body number is a 6-digit number but no space between the Fisher Body plant designation letters and the body number such as KAN208390.

The 3-digit trim code number does differentiate between bench or bucket seats. Kansas City did not separate the lower and upper body color letters/number with a dash (or hyphen) character such as 69 C.

Body dates of months 1 through 9 were padded with a leading zero to make a 3-character body date such as 01B. The 5-digit number following the body date is purported to decode to the xxxth car on the xxx work day of the week such as 01711 would decode to the 711th car on the 1st work day of the week. Whether this is true or not isn't verified but the first two digit has never been found to be above 05 and the Kansas City assembly plant was capable of producing 1,000 Chevelles a day as it did in June of 1969 although most months ranged from 600 to 900 Chevelles a day.

Kansas City often has one or more of several letters stamped on their trim tags. The meaning of these letters is not known. These letters include L, T, W, X, and Z. Sometimes a letter will be stamped by itself, sometimes in conjunction with a second letter. Probably the most controversial of these letters is the letter “L” which many believe indicates an external trim change to SS Equipment trim and badging. To date there has not been any corroborating documentation from GM or Fisher Body to confirm or dispel this theory but probably 99.9% of all known SS Equipment optioned Malibus and 300 Deluxe models have this letter “L” on the trim tag. To date, these letters have been found on the following series/body style trim tags.

Letter	Found On
L	Malibu sport coupe, Malibu sport sedan, Malibu series Custom El Camino, and 300 Deluxe sport coupe. Probably the most controversial letter. It's strongly believed this letter L indicates external SS396 trim but this has NOT been confirmed by any direct knowledge or GM documentation. The letter L has been found on at least 1 non-SS396 optioned Malibu and at least 1 known SS396 optioned Malibu has been found without this letter L. While using this letter as a way to determine if your 1969 Chevelle is a true SS396 or not is up to you, there is no 100% guarantee but there is strong evidence that it does. More often found by itself but sometimes in combination with letter X on a 134xx 300 Deluxe.
T	Found on Concours optioned Malibu sport sedan in conjunction with the letter “W.”
X	Found on 131/132xx Nomad series station wagons and 133/134xx 300 Deluxe series coupes/sport coupes. Sometimes found by itself, sometimes in combination with letter Z.
W	Found on Concours optioned Malibu sport sedan in conjunction with the letter “T.”
F	Found on Malibu series Custom El Camino. Sometimes found by itself, sometimes in combination with letters M, and/or L.
M	Found on Malibu sport coupe, convertible and Malibu series Custom El Camino. Sometimes found by itself, sometimes in combination with letters B, M, and/or L.

It is a good bet that other series/body style trim tags will have these letters as well, I just do not happen to have examples of other series/body style tags to elaborate on.