Spare tire

[Roald P.]

Re: Spare tire

The sequence that's indented (appears to read 'U 00186 RW') looks like the mfgr's original identity code. That would place its mfgr prior to 1/1/68 when the DOT mandated identification sequences...

After 1/1/68 the sequences would read 'DOT xxxxxxxx' where the sequence was made up by each manufacturer but embodied the information required by DOT. It wasn't until roughly March of 1971 that DOT standardized the sequences into an 11-character code.

Prior to DOT rule making, most tire mfgr's had their own identity sequence for internal purposes (source traceability) but those sequences may not have provided the information DOT would later require (mfgr ID code, plant location, date of mfgr, Etc.).

Thanks, thats a bit older than I originally thought. Found this on google.

[Roald P.]

Re: Spare tire

On the left of the valve stem will be, maybe, K 1 8 1 ?
K = Kelsey Haynes
1 = plant of manufacture Romulus, Michigan
8 = 1968
1 = I can see in your picture = January

29 = 29 day of the month
AG = 15x7 size of wheel

So this wheel was made January 29 -- probably 1968.

Thanks, I'll try to located the last numbers then I remember the K1.

[Terry M.]

Re: Spare tire

Some folks didn't like the original nylon cord tires and put different tires on the car right away. That might be what happened here.

[Joe L.]

Re: Spare tire

It looks as though one sticker say's AUG (August) and the other say's 68 (1968). If Calif. worked the same way as New York back then, wouldnt that make the registration expire in August of 1968, a year after the car was originally registered ? That would make the car a VERY early 1968 purchased and registered in August of 1967, the first month of production.

Doug-----


At the time this car was first licensed, California was on a different renewal system. All registrations expired on December 31 of any given year and there were no "month" stickers on the left upper corner of the plate. If you first licensed a car in, say, August, you would pay a license fee pro-rated to the end of the year.

Sometime in the early 1970's, the system changed to registrations coming due in all 12 months of the year in order to "spread out" the workload for the DMV. New cars registration period began the month they were first licensed and expired a year later. Existing cars at the time of the changeover were assigned an expiration month based upon the last alpha character of the plate's sequence. On a one-year-only basis, the registration was pro-rated for a lesser (or greater) number of months than a full year. I don't recall the exact protocols, but that was the basic procedure.

So, this car was "converted" to an August registration date rather than having that from the get-go. The registration sticker looks like it's from 1988. I can't confirm that, though, because I just don't remember what color sticker was used for 1988 expirations.

[Joe L.]

Re: Spare tire

Its a bit difficult to see in the picture but it actually says "AUG 88", which was around the time the car was exported to Denmark and then sat in a garage until last summer (probably due to a 180% import tax you have to pay here before it may drive on the roads) But that is probably what saved it. People did some wierd things to these cars here in the eighties.

The car is #13900, thats sometime around the first quarter of 1968, right?

Roald-----


1968 VIN #13900 would have been built around the end of the second week of March, 1968. So, assuming it was shipped and delivered to a customer relatively soon after that time, the license plate issuance would have been right within the period I previously mentioned.