Greetings All;

I have a 1949 Ford F5 (according to the title) but the VIN number found on the glove box door and firewall are 88RT72982 (research indicates this is a 1948 vehicle). When I put the VIN into the VIN decoder as shown I get a not-valid message. I'm confused. Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Jim

 

Check this thread: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/4...n-cut-off.html

(Sticky at the top of this forum's main page). I would guess yours is a very late '48 that got titled as a 49; does the title have your correct serial number and say '49? The decoder gags on many numbers.

 

Thanks ALBUQ F1, yes the title has the correct number on it and there is a spray paint stencil on the firewall 06-10-48. Thanks for the feedback.

 

The vin decoder doesn't work very well for older vehicles. Technically what we have with these older trucks is a serial number.

88RT 72982 would actually fall right in the middle of the production year as indicated by the stenciled date.

They began on January 16, 1948 and were numbered from 88RC 101thru 139,262 for V8's. The I-6's ran from 87HC 6911 thru 166,979 - this according to the Old Ford Truck Club.

Often trucks were titled by the year they sold. If your's sat on a lot for 6 months and then sold in 49 that could account for the title date. The serial # is clearly a '48 model.

 

Welcome to the Forum Jim.

With the philosophy of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", I'd let the title work go as a 49. As indicated above, and Tim is a resident VIN Guru, it was common for vehicles to be titled as the year sold vs. made. The wife's Nash metro, last year of mfg was cy '60, yet hers is titled '62. A 47ish Power Wagon I had based on serial no. was titled as a '48. I was going to get the title corrected to a '47. To complicate things, Dodge used the serial number on the engine, not the body to title a vehicle. And yep, they were not the same. In order to get things "right" the police department said I would need to disassemble the entire vehicle to verify numbers, that is wasn't stolen, etc etc.... It was still titled as a '48 when it left my hands.....

 

In many states, the title did not say "Year of manufacture", it said "Year First Registered".

 

And to further confuse things Ford appeared to use Jan - Dec mfg as the model year for the early F's. At least 48-50 build dates roughly correspond with the calendar year theory.

I haven't been able to tell for sure when that changed to fall as the cutoff - it might have been Sept 15, '51 when the new style serial plates came into being.

If anybody has any info on this I'd love to hear about it.

 

When I first decided to join this organization I was somewhat skeptical but members here have erased my skepticism. What a tremendous resource. Even in this information age the internet allows you to look up almost everything but where do you find it? I guess the answer is relying on truck nuts like the members of this forum. Tremendous information. Thanks so much. If I discover anything important in my travels I'll be sure to pass it along. The truck will remain titled a '49 for simplicity's sake but I'm going to try and retain the stencil during the restore. Thanks members.

Jim

 

Check out this website: www.lovefords.com
I have used them before and they have the ability to decode it from OEM based VIN's.
Good luck
Don

 

Thanks F1 Fordman;

I followed the link you sent and the good folks at LoveFords were able to provide me with the most information I've been able to gather thus far. Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Jim