Handy, Free VIN Decoder for Classic Cars
Decoding a pre-1981 vehicle identification number used to require some digging. I’ve just learned that the folks over at DecodeThis have been building a cool ”universal” VIN decoder. It’s not quite universal yet; at this writing, their program covers most domestic cars from 1960-1973 (especially musclecars). They’re continually adding new “patterns,” and they asked me to check back in a few months if my car wasn’t there. Try it out for yourself:
If you’re squeamish about entering the “serial number” portion, you can substitute Xs.
Of course, there are websites that specialize in VIN identification for a given range of car…here’s a sampling: Camaro, Corvair, Corvette, Firebird, Mustang, Triumph Spitfire, and Volkswagen. And there are a couple more classic VIN sites that are somewhat general in nature, here and here. (Note: if you’ve reached this permalink from sometime in the future, some of the links may be obsolete.)