I recently purchased a very nice 1951 F-1 from an antique auto collector / dealer. Everything looked ok until I started going through this website and seeing all of the VIN numbers that FORD produced. There are NO VIN plates on my truck whatsoever. the Firewall and glovebox plates are gone, but the drivers side door sill has a small "serial number plate" from the state of colorado with a number of 35089.

The VIN stamped on the passenger frame near the engine looks like:
F1R1LB * 14332 *
The only letter that is questionable is the "L".

Any suggestions ?
Should I have the dealer change the title ?

Any help would be appreciated
Mike Nelson

 

Mike, the serial number you found on the frame is the original that would have appeared on the firewall and glovebox door. Says it was built as an F1, 239 8 cyl, sometime after Sept 15, 1951, in Long Beach, CA (the L is correct) and the last 5 digits between the stars is the unit production number.

Its hard to say what happened to the truck - probably some owner couldn't find the title/serial number and applied for a replacement title with the state of Colorado??? Thus the random number on the doorpost.

If the number on the title matches the door post plate you can leave it like it is. If you want a title to match veh number, you'll have to go to your state bmv and see how many hoops you have to jump thru to get it changed back. Or the dealer may have some leeway - each state is different. Its up to you.......

 

Thanks !
I'll definately have the title changed over to reflect the orginla VIN.
I found a couple of places that will make replacement data tags
for these 50 model ford pickups.

Thanks for the info.
Mike///
http://207.21.202.17/ford.jpg