OTR18WHEELER

While at SITM 2015, I overheard a conversation about the triple Z's included in the VIN code under the hood.
What does this mean?
My '85 also has them.





ZZZ code






'85 VIN

hwyengr

Mine does this too, so I assumed that at the fender stamping facility on the production line, they weren't sure if the car was going to be US-bound or ROW, so all cars got the ROW ZZZ code and they put the real VIN in the windshield.

jpitman2

Yes, chassis destination is unknown at build time, so they are all ZZZ. Real no is under windshield.

jp 83 Euro S AT 56k

Hilton

Actually, destination was known at build time. The "86xxxx" part of the above VIN shows its destined for the north american market. (ROW is "84xxxx"

I suspect its more to do with the problem of stamping (and computing) different check digits on the chassis at construction time - it was much cheaper just to leave it as ZZZ on the chassis, and stick a small much-cheaper stamped metal tab in the windscreen which could be made in an offline process.

ROG100

Not certain that this is the case - a lot of ROW cars had the VIN plate under the hood/bonnet near the latch.

Certainly true for USA/CAN cars - if a ROW car was federalized here in the States they added a plate to the left windshield A pillar.

Vilhuer

JB0 and other DOT specific things in VIN are based on what safety equipment is installed into car. It's possible factory weren't absolutely sure what stuff is going to be installed to car at later point in production line. This because US and Canada cars share same VIN sequence and can have different equipment like 2 or 3 point rear seat belts etc. So it was simpler to use ZZZ at early stage of body building. Also when 4th to 6th is not known 9th check digit cannot be calculated. As Hilton says, 13th digit is always indication for what market body is made for so ZZZ, JB0 or whatever is not needed to tell the difference.

OTR18WHEELER

..
Still curious about this, the 'fender stamp' is not on The fender, it is on the chassis inner fender, which during assembly, would have been prior to the interior A pillar tag.
So which leaves me to believe the car was built to spec. , maybe a defined USA destined build.
I bring this topic up again because I have located numerous euro wiring plugs that are unused.

Vilhuer

Every 928 had that ZZZ in body under the fender since 17 digit VIN came to use in '81 MY (or was it '80 MY already?). Every one of them has ZZZ and ROW vs US can always be identified by 13th digit. WP0ZZZ92_mS8xnnnn where x is 0, 1, 2, 4 or 6.