:unitedstates:
I recently got a 57 Ranchero it came with what appears to be a 58 hood. Talking with a few of the local Ford experts they say that the hood could be original it the car was built towards the end of the production run. Decoding the VIN it tells me that it was built in Milpitas in October. Is this true or should I be looking for a 57 hood to keep the car original?
Look for a 57 hood, the 58 style hood was never used during the 57 model run.
Graybandit:
When looking up the VIN numbers on my 57 (on John Gambil's 1957Ford.com site), it showed that it was built on September 27, 1957 in the Long Beach (Terminal Island) plant. Checking the production date code (mine was longer than 12 months, a W indicating September) and the units produced per plant indicated it was done on the final day of production at the Long Beach plant 147 from the end of the run.
You can tell whether the car was produced in the longer than 12 month October if the letter code is an X, also if the consecutive unit code is a very high number. The Milpitas plant produced 218,006 57 Fords, if your number is high, it could be one of the late builds. However, if your production date was a K, it was built in October 1956. I don't have any information on 58 hoods being used on a production built 1957 Ford, they do look pretty cool though.
Bob
57 AGIN
Thanks for the help guys.