production date of car

[Robert erb]

Please help. I need to know the production date (month) of my 1972 C3, VIN: 1Z37W2S516422. I know it's a '72 LS5 coupe, but I need a engine and want to get the block casting numbers as close as possible to the original. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[William C.]

Re: production date of car

mid-March of '72

[Michael W.]

Re: production date of car

What's in the upper right corner of the trim tag? That will tell the date of production within 2 days or so.

[Jack H.]

Re: production date of car

That'll get you the body build date which isn't necessarily the same as the car's actual build date. BUT, since 'warehouse' space for finished bodies was scarce at St. Louis and there was only one sub-assy source for bodies in the Shark era (St. Louis), the two dates are typically close in time.

But, there WERE cases where this/that body was delayed going to the final line due to quality write-ups, 'circulation' (multiple passes) in the paint booth and perhaps a production hold issue with a particular option configuration. Bottom line, it's best to run a birthday calculation based on the unit VIN rather than to accept the body build date on the trim tag as 'gospel'...

[Terry M.]

Re: production date of car

Actually Jack the trim tag IS more accurate than the birthday calculators in most cases. The birthday calculators are based on mathematical calculations averaging monthly production over the estimated number of working days in the month. This estimation often fails during Christmas or New Years when the question of whether the assembly plant was working between those holidays is not known. It also fails to take into account whether the plant operated on Saturday. Either of those situations can throw the calculations off.

The calculators serve a useful purpose for those cases where no trim tag is present, or those years where the trim tag does not give a specific date.

I have been collecting early C3 VIN and build dates, as you know, for almost twenty years and so far have only found one car whose body was delayed in exiting St. Louis. I am convinced there were others, and I obviously do not have the records for more than a modest percentage of that Corvette production, so there is certainly more that I don't know about this subject. I would, however, rate the instances of production anomalies regarding the VIN and trim tag dates as relatively low.

More importantly the judges use the trim tag date (in those years where there is one) as the production date of the car for judging purposes. Why shouldn’t the owner use the same dat the judges use?