1971 SS-Optioned Chevelle

1971 SS-Optioned Malibu

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

Kansas City makes a distinction between an inline 6-cylinder engine and a V8 engine with the style number. Other 1971 final assembly plants also matched the Fisher Body style number with the exact series/model. The words/abbreviation ST (for style), K, 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 71 13637, the body number is padded with leading zeros to make a 6-digit body number such as K006971. The body number on 1971 Kansas City-built Chevelles is also the first 6-digit number in block 24 of their build sheet.

The 3-digit trim code itself was enough to distinguish between a bench and bucket seat type. For example, trim code 705 is a black vinyl bench seat whereas trim code 706 is a black vinyl bucket seat. Kansas City did not separate the lower and upper body color letters/number with a dash (or hyphen) character.

Body dates of months 1 through 9 were padded with a leading zero to make a 3-character body date. The 5-digit number following the body date is a concatenation of the 4-digit number found in block 24 of their build sheet and a 5th digit being the work day of the week.

Kansas City often has one or more of several letters stamped on their trim tags. The meaning of some of these letters is not known. These letters include B, L, 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 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
B or W	The letters B or W is used to indicate the Chevelle came with black or white RPO D88 stripes.
L	Probably the most controversial is the letter L found on Malibu series Chevelles. It's strongly believed this letter L indicates external SS Equipment trim but this has NOT been confirmed by any direct knowledge or GM documentation. While using this letter as a way to determine if your 1971 Chevelle is a true SS or not is up to you, there is no 100% guarantee but there is strong evidence that it does.
X	Found on 13236 Nomad station wagon.
Z	Found on 13236 Nomad station wagon, 13380 El Camino, and 13437 Chevelle sport coupe.

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.