Question about VIN stampings

[Bill Pritchard]

I know our old 69 Impala convertible (built at the St. Louis plant) had the CON VIN stamped under the blower motor housing on the firewall.

[JohnZ]

Here's a typical engine/transmission VIN derivative gang holder, where one (or more) digits were manually changed for each job as it came down the engine dress line; each individual character die had a slot milled in one side, and the spring clip kept them from falling out:



Here's a typical air-powered frame VIN stamper - it clamped to the frame rail and stamped the top surface, normally in two places:



The body/cowl stamper was made by the same company (George T. Schmidt Co. in Chicago), but was a multi-segment indexing "egg-stamper" mounted on a swiveling bail like a spot-weld gun; the "egg" rolled one way for the cowl impression, the tool was re-positioned to the heater opening, and it rolled back the other way, and was then indexed one digit for the next job.

[Mr70]

Incredible...Great pics & info Mr.Z
Thank You for sharing.

[Belair62]

Great pics.....

[Jeff H]

Thanks John Z, I figured you would have the detailed answer.

[SS427]

Great pictures John. Any chance you could share other assembly line photos. I am amazed at how many myths these photos can dispell. Thank you for sharing them with us!
Rick

[Bill Pritchard]

Neat pics, John, thank you for the info

[firstgenaddict]

My Pontiac built 68 GTO has no VIN on the frame nor does it hav any hidden VIN's that I can find...

[Rainer]

If the body VINs were stamped as described above, what are the thoughts on the cowl stampings of this LS6 rag on ebay?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=4599998347

[Bill Pritchard]

My thoughts are that I would be suspicious of those stampings. The sheet metal looks pretty distorted in the stamped areas. Perhaps the Los Angeles plant used a different stamping method on the bodies