I purchased this car at least ten years ago in CA. The fellow had also owned an automatic.
The car had F (302 2v)on the front aprons
S (390 4v) on the buck tag
R (428) on the door and VIN tags
It had been in CA and TX for its days and was in pretty good overall condition, the paint was a quickie and poor quality. It seemed quite clear that this car was a 428 from the R codes.
I had ordered a Marti report a few years ago(similar to PHS paperwork) and was very happy to find out that the car was in fact for real.
Recently I posted the door tag on the Vintage Mustang forum and a couple of real keeners clued into some info that I was unaware of. Shortly thereafter Kevin Marti chimed in and revealed to me that this was the first 428 convertible. How cool is that......
I've learned a few things that hopefully can expand some knowledge on the blue oval.
The lower portion of the door tag was supposed to be stamped with the same info as the top part then sheared off. It was called a temporary owners card and was placed in the glove box/owners manual.
You will notice that the door tag on this car did not get stamped on the lower portion. The most likely reason is that the car is a Ford pool vehicle as designated by the 89 dso and probably never did get warranty.
The door tag is not for title because 1968 was the first year of "public VINs", the VIN must be visible from the windshield, so that was the VIN for title purposes on any 1968 vehicle regardless of manufacturer.
The second anomaly on the door tag was the 3.50 axle code (H code). This was not available on 428 cars. The paperwork from Kevin indicates that the car came with a 3.00 axle (E code). I've not been able to determine what differential is in the car.
The third is the Feb 16 date code, the cars were not available until April.
When I got the car home I briefly looked through it and pulled up the carpet on the drivers side. The hole in the firewall for the clutch had been cut with a set of tin snips, the piece of firewall was buried in the underlay.
I'm sorry that I could not get any better pics, it is not that accessible. If anyone knows anything else about this car please let me know. My intention is to finish putting the parts together for the planned restoration and get it out of the rack in the next couple of years, for now it is out of harms way.
Fred