my bird is home (pics)

[dgs]

... I see from what your data plate says, that your Tbird was scheduled for completion on 17 August, 1959. The H is August 1959. W would have been August, 1960. ...

It looks like this car would have been produced in August 1960, not early 59. The serial number is in the 80,000 series.

I'm confused. In the last Squarebird thread, W is said to be Sept. '60, here you say W is August '60 (typo?). On the other hand, GTE427 says that the VIN puts this car in the August '60 time frame, which makes sense. Yet, 57ford/60thunderbird says his ROT sheet says June 59.

My car has a date code of 26G and is in the 78,000 range (OY73Y178022), which sounds more like July '60 than July '59, but the G is a long way from W, only 2 months later.

What's going on here?

[GTE427]

Good catch, I didn't notice the contradiction earlier when I posted. The VIN number is listed in the 80000 series of numbers which would be late 60, while the date code of H places the production during 1959 per known resources.

Possibility there was an error in reading the plate or in the original post. Could the owner check the info and get back to us? Thinking of more possibilities, prefer to wait for data plate verification prior to any further speculation.

Added: The June 59 that was refered to is the revision/issue date of the blank form, nothing to do with the data that was printed onto the form as part of the assembly.

[57ford/60thunderbird]

ok guys my date on my plate is 17H as it is also on my rot sheet i have the sheet right here in front of me and under sched.date it clearly says 17H

the rest of my serial number is 84430

[GTE427]

Keith,

Seems like there is some problems with the resources we've been using, which ultimately relates back to Ford's literature. Ray posted another tread to help clear this up.

With your serial number, the car would have had to been produced late 1960. Your car will probably show other physical evidence that it is a later car, the lack of underhood insulation that you've reported, the chevrons on the rear quarter should be attached with speed nuts in the trunk, not screws on the outside as on early cars, the sail panel (c post) moulding should be ribbed, not smooth as on early cars.

I'll look at some Ford literature for the 1960 date code to see what they published.

[57ford/60thunderbird]

yes my car has the speed nuts holding the quarter emblems and it has ribs on the molding on the b pillar
so the b- pillar molding was smooth on early 60's ? hmmmm