Found 68 GT350/500? need help identifying it. I have questions

[shelbymann1970]

I have never witnessed a secret Vin on a mustang.
I will say this, when I was dealing heavily in Dodge, Cuda etc, hemi or 6 pack for the most part;

A dear friend in Ca told me of a secret vin on Cuda's and other Mopar.
trunk rain gutter, drivers side if i recall.

There are other stamped locations, but FEW experts knew about the rain gutter numbers.
John

Well the watchers of Graveyard Carz know of all the stamped areas. They regularly show them on the cars. Usually pull WS back on the trunk area(some cars?) to reveal the number. Also on the cowl and core support IIRC.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HesnbGaB9s

[shelbydoug]

Supposedly it is lightly stamped inside on of the rear chassis rails. I believe that it begins in the '68 model year.

It does not show through with any transparency like the front aprons do.

I can not confirm this but have had State Police tell me that yes it exits.

You at the time, needed some kind of security clearance to see it since the Police did not want the information out in the public domain.

again my car above was media blasted and the underside was real clean in the areas you mentioned. If you can provide a pic of the approximate areas you are referring to I'll get my friends all original California car up on a lift and look for those numbers in the areas you provide. My vert I spent 6 months on a rotisserie perfecting the underside getting rid of dents and any metal pitting(none in the rear frame areas). Pic below is the outer rear frame rail on one side of the B9 I mentioned. So look on the other side? Or do you mean the inside of the rails which are impossible to see unless you cut the car up? If that was the case it would be impossible to stamp the INSIDE of the rail because it is "U" shaped and no way to stamp once formed from a blank.

It isn't information that I have. It is information that I was TOLD ABOUT.

A SHEET of paper was flashed in front of me and I was not allowed to copy it. This was somewhere in the 1977-8 time frame. My recollection of my reaction was, "ok, so what?" and went on with my business of the day which obviously was picking up a bunch of service parts.

I can't find my car keys now. You want me to remember verbaden what the sheet said? Sure. OK. 

It was as if I needed a security clearance to see it. It's interesting that no one else had ever produced a copy of the sheet after all of these years which suggests that maybe it was a hoax to begin with but in this case, you can't prove a negative.

[Special Ed]

John on the mopar B-bodys there is a serial # in the trunk rain gutter BUT not in the E body smaller cars the #s are stamped in the cowl and the rad support area. I looked at a (supposedly 70   440 6-pack V code shaker cuda) at BJ auction last week that got pulled and inspected by Dave Wise BJs mopar expert inspector after grinding off bondo that covered the original #s and the v-code E -body fake body codes were stamped on top of bondo and painted over in the cowl area. Jason Billups inspects the fords and Jerry Macness does GM cars before the auction on lifts. Years ago i inspected a shelby vert that was a poorly restored rebodied in canada shelby and sold in the USA of which causes many lawyer problems when crossing the border. On a mustang there are certain things to look for on a Dual exhaust mustang of which all shelbys started out being built as and especially on a vert dual exhaust verts are harder and more expensive to find so the guy who rebodied the shelby vert did it with a much cheaper single exhaust vert. So now u know why the buyer THOUGHT he got a good deal !!

[Harris Speedster]

ED,
I totally agree, I did know about the other # locations.
But the one in the trunk rain gutter is not commonly known.
Mopar guys are like shelby guys, jag guys, RR guys and others, we all keep people as honest as we can, good clubs>>>

[Cobrask8]

So, to get back on topic, has the O.P. given the VIN yet?

[gt350shelb]

I have had these cars farther apart than  almost  ford   I  have never seen anything  other than cowl tag  engine and trans stamping and front aprons / this includes cars that were cut apart and then  dipped / or blasted  inside and out ..... there  may have  been vins in crayon on bodys  but that would be impossible to find without soda blasting.

[shelbymann1970]

John on the mopar B-bodys there is a serial # in the trunk rain gutter BUT not in the E body smaller cars the #s are stamped in the cowl and the rad support area. I looked at a (supposedly 70   440 6-pack V code shaker cuda) at BJ auction last week that got pulled and inspected by Dave Wise BJs mopar expert inspector after grinding off bondo that covered the original #s and the v-code E -body fake body codes were stamped on top of bondo and painted over in the cowl area. Jason Billups inspects the fords and Jerry Macness does GM cars before the auction on lifts. Years ago i inspected a shelby vert that was a poorly restored rebodied in canada shelby and sold in the USA of which causes many lawyer problems when crossing the border. On a mustang there are certain things to look for on a Dual exhaust mustang of which all shelbys started out being built as and especially on a vert dual exhaust verts are harder and more expensive to find so the guy who rebodied the shelby vert did it with a much cheaper single exhaust vert. So now u know why the buyer THOUGHT he got a good deal !!

On Goldbergs black 6 pack Cuda Worman showed the cowl and core support numbers. The video I supplied above was a B-body and core support and trunk area. Probably should have been more clear than IIRC comment. LOL. Gary

[Harris Speedster]

No big deal Shelbyman, all in the spirit of research and documenting.

Little off topic:
Mustangs and Shelby's that went to Belgium, had entirely new serial numbers stamped into the body aprons.
Just an oddity that Mr Vinnie knows about too.

[6R07mi]

No big deal Shelbyman, all in the spirit of research and documenting.

Little off topic:
Mustangs and Shelby's that went to Belgium, had entirely new serial numbers stamped into the body aprons.
Just an oddity that Mr Vinnie knows about too.

I got this from a friend, this is a T5 tag placed over the LH apron stamping.

jim p

[SFM5S000]

So, to get back on topic, has the O.P. given the VIN yet?

Hello Dan, Earl here (former VP NorCal a few years back, SAAC35) long time no see. Anyway I'm the O.P.

Well, first and foremost. This car is Very Bad News. I went and saw the car yesterday. The owner had cleared the area around the car somewhat. Upon inspection with some guidance from CoralSnake, I went looking for VINs. Unfortunately ALL the numbers have been either removed or cut out! I checked both inner fender locations. Both were cut out. I even unbolted the passenger fender. Big rectangle section removed from each inner fender.  I scraped the primer off the lower corners of the windshield. No number plate, no stamped numbers. Nothing. I checked both sides. Zippo.
Buck tags? Not a chance, as with the door tags. All gone.

I was floored. I've never seen that and thought, what a shame...waste of car.

I spoke with the owner. This will be a DMV nightmare if not get confiscated by the police if he attempts to somehow register it.
As bizarre as it is, there were even patch metal pieces to be welded in (see pic) what would that have done? Other than fill the holes. The only thing that he can do with the car (as far as I was concerned) was turn it into a pure track or race car. I told him he was going to have a tough time selling it real Shelby Mustang or Not.

My gut on the car is that it's not a real one as the "fiberglass Shelby pieces" back sides were fiberglass "chop" indicating reproduction pieces put on a fastback Mustang. But it did have a stock appearing 9" rear and dual exhaust hangers. Rear fenders had small flairs.

All in all, that ended my interest in this car. I wouldn't touch this one with a 10 foot pole.
So now you all know.

Cheers,
~Earl J

[SFM5S000]

More pics,
Note 3rd pic, inside of trunk, tail light panel cutouts? Are these cuts correct?
My thinking is someone was/had built a clone.
I'm also thinking this car was stolen.

~E

[Cobrask8]

Earl,

Thanks very much for the update. Answered many of our questions. And indeed a waste of a car. Probably explains why it's been sitting.

Back in the 1980's, I remember a Red 1986 Shelby at the Englishtown Car Show with changed VIN numbers. Can't remember exactly, but the vehicle ID part of the VIN was a High digit (70's or 80's ) Two digit number. No one wanted to tell her the car was questionable.

[CharlesTurner]

It has shock tower reinforcements and the rear panel cutouts kind of look right, although not a good pic. 

Would be worth a closer look, although a guessing game when it comes to ID'ing the car.  Should be able to date the body based on sheet metal and component date stamps.  I'd agree that it might be best as a track/race car.  Wonder if it was one of those cars from the outfit that was doing eleanors and got in big trouble for VIN tampering.

[J_Speegle]

P.S. In the past he N.I.C.B.  published a cheat sheet that showed the location of vin/hidden vins on vehicles, that's where police departments got that information from in the first place.

These were small approx. 4x6" books held together with a couple of staples published each year. Have copies from the 60's through mid-70's versions my father left me. They are about 150 pages in length. He was an auto thief detective for years for a decent size metro department

Shows locations and break down of codes and VINs

[427hunter]

P.S. In the past he N.I.C.B.  published a cheat sheet that showed the location of vin/hidden vins on vehicles, that's where police departments got that information from in the first place.

These were small approx. 4x6" books held together with a couple of staples published each year. Have copies from the 60's through mid-70's versions my father left me. They are about 150 pages in length. He was an auto thief detective for years for a decent size metro department

Shows locations and break down of codes and VINs

Yes, they issued them into the 90's - a little known fact, the N.I.C.B. has a list of every vin of every make and what original equipment went with that vin. If you remember the news a few years back a guy was busted selling a fake hemi cuda, the vin was the correct R for hemi and all the body sequential numbers matched, question arose from the engine which was found to have a restamped vin - but was sold as original. The buyer believed he was defrauded and reported it to the police.  The police contacted the N.I.C.B. who checked the sequential number they had on file and found the cuda started life as an N code 383 car. It would be nice if they made the vin information public.