1971 Sportsroof With 0 Date Stamped On Towers

Hello All.

I have a 71 Sportsroof that was built in Metuchen, NJ that have a really goofy VIN situation going on.

The dash VIN tag, and the door sticker both show the VIN starting with the number 1, for 1971 obviously, but after inspecting the VIN stamped on the top of both towers, they both start with "0", as in 1970.

A guy from the FCA was over to buy some parts and asked if it was a Metuchen car right away, and then said it was well documented.

I have looked all over the web and can't find any reference or instance of this happening.

Does anyone know about, or heard of this previously?

Thanks, Mike H.

Yes, it's a factory mis-stamp. As long as the six digit sequence number matches your dash and door, you are good to go.

Thanks for the reply.

Is there any additional information available?

I am curious to know how many were goofed for 1971?

Thanks, Mike H.

Yea, i had a 71 M code mach 1 from metuchen that had matching door and vin. But the towers had exactly this "1T05111111" then had another number right below that with 0T00000000 wth the last 6 digits having XXXXXX over the zeros. Really strange! It was a really original car. I had no reason to believe it was messed with but who would do that? After a bunch of homework it appears this sometimes happened for no reason i could come up with. I called it a friday car. They were in a hurry to get the pub i guessed?

I have not gone to look at my cars but someone told me the other day that the VIN# is also stamped in the rocker box between the door jam and A post. I have never seen or heard of that either. 

What is the VIN# of your car? If it was an early build they could have still been building 70 models with the 71 mixed in. That would be a June or July build time to be pre production of SOP, start of production. They do the complete model switch over the 4th. of July shut down. 

I have seen other year models with the VIN stamped half a dozen times on one inner. I guess the guy was playing with the air stamp. 

Do you have your Buck Tag? Might have some strange code on it also if early car. 

Anything on a car can be screwed up for sure.

Here is a copy of the Marty report and a picture.

Thanks for the replies.

I actually found a link on the Marti website FAQ page that highlighted the exact issue on another car.

Link from Kevin Marti Auto Works Page.

https://www.martiauto.com/faqfocus.cfm?qid=139



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Mine is a 1971 Mach1 from Metuchen built on December 1970 and get this, it is marked "1T04" on the fender. The rest of the digits match the dashpad and buck tag. I guarantee you it is not a 1974

There must have been a lot of drinking going on at that plant