Re: Weird VINs in the doors

["James" <james@xxxx>]

Scott -

All the cars left at the factory after the last boat "authorized" by 
the US arm of DMC later became the property of Consolidated 
International and according to Leif Montin, who was there at the 
time, these remaining CD010XXX, CD011XXX and CD012XXX cars were given 
new VIN numbers, DD015XXX, DD016XXX and DD017XXX. This was in the 
October/November of 1982, and they wanted the cars to appear to be 
1983 models (as otherwise the cars would have already been one model 
year "old"). Supposedly, this was done at the instruction of Jeff 
Abrams, mentioned in SSI as one of people from Consolidated involved 
in sorting out the factory, cars, etc., after they took over.

I bet that your VIN plate on the dash is glued on rather than pop-
riveted. If you were to pop it off, you would see the holes from the 
original pop-rivets still in the dash. 

That would explain the V12094.

I don't think the 8.25 and 9.30 are dates. In N. Ireland and the UK, 
the dates are written day/month (i.e 31 Dec or 31/12). 

And I think the Metal Mikey is actually "Metal Mickey". His name has 
been found on a lot of doors! Wonder who he was and where he is now?

We have several doors here in the warehouse with VIN's written in 
them, that were either not installed on the cars (failed QC 
electrical tests, maybe) but still carry the VIN of their intended 
car. The stainless door for V20105 is here, too. 20105 was re-skinned 
to become the last gold car.

A few of the doors also have HIGHER VIN's, like V21113. Built the 
door, but never the rest of the car? Lots of mysteries in the VIN 
system that they used on the 1982 and 1983's. 

James Espey
DeLorean Motor Company



--- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Scott McMullan" <mcmullan@xxxx> 
wrote:
> My VIN is 17094, manufactured Aug 82.
> 
> On the left door, I saw "V12159" along with a key code, as well as 
the
> initials "RJC" a date of "9.30" and the number "17". This didn't 
confuse me
> too much -- it sounds like it must have been replaced at some 
point... but I
> would be interested in hearing if anyone out there knows what 
happened to
> 12159.
> 
> On the right door, I saw "V12094" and a different key code, and a 
date of
> "8.25" but there were also some other interesting things, a 
signature from
> "Metal Mikey Z.", and another date "25.3.82 OK RB + KS" -- this 
was kind of
> cool... but what really makes me scratch my head is the VIN 12094, 
which is
> too similar to my actual VIN 17094 to be a coincidence. Was there 
maybe a
> batch of VINs in the 12xxx series that was reassigned to 17xxx for 
sale in
> Canada (mine's a Canadian model)? Can someone else with a 17xxx 
VIN peek at
> their doors and see if they see something similar? Maybe my left 
door
> actually came from VIN 17259? If you think maybe I just misread the
> writing, take a look for yourself:
> http://www.sixgeeks.org/~scott/DeLorean/rh.jpg
> 
> Certainly not urgent, but if anyone has any info that can shed some 
light on
> this I'd love to hear it.
> Thanks!
> --Scott