VIN tag say this is the 62,270th car scheduled for assembly at Chrysler's Jefferson Ave. Detroit plant--a 1960 model year Chrysler Newport Town & Country station wagon. The Body Data Plate indicates the car was a two-row Newport wagon scheduled to be assembled approximately on July 1, 1960. It was vehicle #7 scheduled to be built on that date on assembly line 1. Its roof and lower body were to be painted Alaskan White. The numbers under the letters in the middle of the plate tell about certain options on the car. Pretty sure the 5 under the N sands for the heater. Other codes, I have not yet researched. Thanks for posting. Attached are similar plates from a 1960 300F convertible.
Hi, Ross: I want to encourage your interest in the data on VIN tags and Body Data Plates. My research leads me to believe the lower LH letters stand for Schedule Order-part of the scheduling system and in date format--thus, 0701 means a scheduled assembly date of July 1. The VIN tag tells us this is a 1960 model year car and this leads us to infer the full scheduled assembly date was July 1,1960. In 1965, MoPar Body Data Plates needed a few more characters on the bottom line so assigned letters A, B & C to the two-digit months of Oct, Nov & Dec. Thus, a 1965 Model year car scheduled for assembly on Christmas Day, 1964 would have the characters C25 under the SO letters. Previously, 4-digit date codes prevailed. Note: Previous three-character codes under "PNT" for paint codes expanded to up to five characters under the letters "PAINT". additionally, beginning in the 1965 model year, information on other options began to be shown under the numbers on the top line. Previously, this data was often just a partial repeat of the data on the bottom line. Keep studying, observing and gathering data-in the hopes of discovering the science of the plates.
In 1960, the entry-level Chrysler was a Windsor, not a Newport. The mid-level model was a Saratoga and top of the line was the New Yorker. Have a great week.
