Production Date Verification Needed

[70 Challenger Lover]

Planning to order my door vin decal today as the original was removed during the restoration. These decals are a little pricey so I want to be absolutely certain I get the correct month on it. A build date of C 09 means my car was built in December 1970, correct?

I keep reading that it started with A in October but it just seems odd that A wouldn't be August since that was the month production started for the new model year.

[js27]

You are correct C is December. Not sure why Chrysler listed August as 8 and Sept as 9 then switched to the A-B-C then went back to 1 in Jan and 2 in Feb and so on. Must have had a reason.
JS27

[Burdar]

January is the 1st month of the year so it is designated with a "1".  They only allotted 1 space for the month on the fender tag.  October is the 10th month.  With only 1 space available, they couldn't put a 10 on it.  It only makes sense that they used ABC to finish the year.

Just because the SPD on the fender tag shows a certain month, doesn't mean the door sticker showed the same month.  My cars SPD is 927.(September 27th)  The door sticker says October.  My car was built after the SPD.

I hope the OP took a picture of his door sticker before it was removed.

[340challconvert]

Think about it in this context; The date code number reflected the month and day of a scheduled SPD. 803 would of course represent August 3rd.  905 would be September 5th, 

October is the 10th month and would have added an additional number to the date code thus creating 4 digit numerical code (1015 for October 15) which obviously did not happen.
So Mopar went with a letter code ABC for October, November and December to keep the date code 3 digits.
Just my thoughts on this!

[340challconvert]

Apologies to Burdar who had clarified the information. It looks like we were typing at the same time. 
Burdar also raises another good point; if you had a scheduled build code near the end of a month, the car could have been totally completed a little later, enough to push the door sticker into the next month.

[Burdar]

Since the OPs SPD is December 9th, it's very possible that it could have been built early.  The door sticker could have showed November.

[70 Challenger Lover]

January is the 1st month of the year so it is designated with a "1".  They only allotted 1 space for the month on the fender tag.  October is the 10th month.  With only 1 space available, they couldn't put a 10 on it.  It only makes sense that they used ABC to finish the year.

Just because the SPD on the fender tag shows a certain month, doesn't mean the door sticker showed the same month.  My cars SPD is 927.(September 27th)  The door sticker says October.  My car was built after the SPD.

I hope the OP took a picture of his door sticker before it was removed.

I just bought the car and the seller had it restored years ago. The door sticker was destroyed then so no one has an image of it or recalls what month was listed. I can only hope that C09 would have been produced in December. Too late now I guess since I just ordered the sticker a few minutes ago. My back is kind of against a wall on the sticker because in order for me to register a car like this in Ca. without a title, a VIN verification is needed and while the whole car checks out, they wouldn't sign off on it until I had the federal vin sticker on the door. If Connecticut used titles on older cars like mine, I would not have been rushed to get the sticker anytime soon, if I even got one at all.

Appreciate the insight though. It actually makes a lot of sense when you explain it like that. Though I would have started August with A and just retained the letters throughout the production year.

[1 Wild R/T]

You have the broadcast sheet so you should have the actual build date.... 

[js27]

January is the 1st month of the year so it is designated with a "1".  They only allotted 1 space for the month on the fender tag.  October is the 10th month.  With only 1 space available, they couldn't put a 10 on it.  It only makes sense that they used ABC to finish the year.

Just because the SPD on the fender tag shows a certain month, doesn't mean the door sticker showed the same month.  My cars SPD is 927.(September 27th)  The door sticker says October.  My car was built after the SPD.

I hope the OP took a picture of his door sticker before it was removed.

Thanks for that info and it makes perfect sense now. My car also had 11/20 on the fender tag and door sticker called out Dec 1969.
JS27

[70 Challenger Lover]

All I see on my BS is C09, same as fender tag.

[6bblgt]

this is one of the projects I have been working on: "ACTUAL" VS "SCHEDULED" Production Dates, unfortunately 1971 Hamtramck is just in its beginning stages.  the majority of cars fall into a window 1 week early to 1 month late & I can pretty much eliminate that it wasn't 3+ weeks "LATE" into January '71 and "if" it was a week early that would've still been December '70.  info from 1971 cars with both an original broadcast sheet and door sticker would be a big help to the project if anyone cares to post or share images 


https://forum.e-bodies.org/vin-fender-tag-build-sheet-and-date-codes/13/actual-production-date-vs-scheduled-production-date/810/

1964 was the last model year that used a 4-digit SPD on the fender tags (0101 to 1231)

broadcast sheet shows the same SPD as the fender tag