3067

[awags]

Hi All,

It's been quite some time since I've posted or commented here although I do check in regularly.

Just letting you know on Friday (3/12) I just purchased 3067.

It is a very lengthy story but here are the basics:

The car's been "lost" for 25 years, was supposed to be in "inside" storage and was immaculate at that time, turns out it was outside and not in storage really at all. A friend put me in contact with the car after seeing it for sale on FB w/out a title, I ended up tracking down the actual owner, and now a couple years later I ended up with the car.

Needless to say it is far from immaculate. It is complete though, and I mean every little clip, bracket and all, except for the headlight bezels and hubcaps which were easy to steal while in "storage". It even has the jack and I have a spare set of hubcaps. So really just missing bezels. All the fluids looked fine (even the oil bath) but this afternoon I put on the lift, changed all the fluids, freed up the brakes, and then decided to check for spark (which I am still amazed it had) and 20 minutes later I had it running!!

I am not sure what my end game plan for this car is, we'll see how things go. My main reason for buying was so it didn't get parted out or half fixed up etc. Mechanically I'm thinking it's pretty sound. Interior is garbage, good thing I still have my donor car!! The car is very solid except for a couple spots in the trunk floor and a spot under rear passenger side seat, minor repairs really. Engine is painted blue so I figured it must've had a replacement installed at some point but with some scotchbrite sanding to the block there it was 2085 stamped on the rear so it has the correct engine.
2099420995209962099720998

[Pat Marshall]

Congratulations on your purchase!

It's great to see these cars popping up again after all those years. Makes me wonder how many are really left. I'm thinking a lot more than the experts are guessing.

It's good to get the engine number and the full spec code on 3067. Does it have a body tag? A carpet nameplate?

I have updated 3067's history in our Registry (wasn't able to change the thread title, though).

Please take a look at the history gap between 1984 and now. Possibly you can fill that in a bit: owner (s), locations, dates, etc.

Good job on rescuing 3067!

Pat

[awags]

Thanks Pat.

The only body tag I found is on the firewall, not sure if that's what you're looking for, 1126AC. Nothing anywhere else I could find.

Just the "Continental" carpet nameplate.

With the extensive researching that I had to do to find the owner I'm pretty confident Carl Zetley would have been the owner since 1984. He lived in Milwaukee and passed in 2008, I tracked down and ended up buying it from his son Craig.

[Pat Marshall]

Great, that's the body tag!

A little body tag information. Ford did not make the Mark II bodies. They were made by the Mitchell-Bentley Corporation of Owosso, Michigan. Initially there were two different Mark II bodies, the A/C version and the non-A/C version. The A/C version received the body tag. To my knowledge no one has figured out the logic of the numbers, but the AC is obvious.

Also, the body tags were body color. Regarding colors - things that were on the car bodies when they arrived at the Continental plant were painted body color. Things that were added to the car body at the Continental plant were painted black. Of course that does not include the engine, transmission, chrome, etc.

[Mark Norris]

My car is non-AC, and never did have it, but does have a body tag. The number is illegible (paint too thick, can feel 3 or maybe 4 digits) but its there on the firewall on the driver's side between the battery and the booster. Surely all the bodies would have a tag for tracking/invoicing purposes in the body shop but can readily imagine a fair number where lost/discarded in restoration repaints over the years.

[Pat Marshall]

Interesting. My 1494 non-a/c does not have a body tag.

It's possible that the bodies when stamped were all the same and that some were earmarked for A/C later conversion with a body tag. There is no information that the tags were some kind of serial number.

Mark, I'd really like to know the number of your tag. Is it possible to do a rubbing, like genealogists do to retrieve illegible information from a tombstone?

I checked my data bases and all of the cars for which we have reported body tags are A/C cars. The last car that I have a reported body tag is 3400 with tag #1317AC. (The first official 1957 was 3418)

I'm also asking Forum members who have non-A/C II's before #3418, if they have body tags?

[awags]

Pat,
3400 is my car. Since it was brought up this may or may not be relevant but 3400 is a 56 and does not have the nostrils. Seemed interesting I guess.
It has the DSO 57 engine and transmission which I always assumed was the reason.

[Pat Marshall]

But it does have the body tag, right?

This gets interestinger and interestinger. I could conjour up scenarios of how that could happen. Such as, the body was tagged for A/C before Continental dropped the nostrils? Quien sabe?

[Mark Norris]

Hi Pat - a pencil rubbing didn't work so I've carefully chipped the paint off the numerals. It is still very difficult to read. In the flesh it looks like four digits reading 1009.

The 1 and the 0 are clear, the second 0 and the 9 are more questionable. However if you then look again at the painted tag photo 1009 makes a lot of sense.

21013 21014

If 3400 has a body tag of 1317 then thats 2083 apart. Mine is 3186 and if the body tag is 1009 then thats 2077 apart. Obviously the body shop and chassis won't match up as I assume the bodies were sent to the assembly shop in batches.

Having said that I have some photos of the near perfectly restored 1623 and that has body tag 176AC.

Are there two small screw holes in your fire wall somewhere between the battery rack and the booster approx. 2-1/4" apart? The body tag positions seem to vary from being level with the bottom of the battery rack to be level with the top of the battery rack.

[Mark II Seeker]

Pat,

I no longer have the car (2897) but it did have a body tag 896 on the firewall and it is a non A/C car. I can't find the thread that I sent to you back in the day when you were asking about engine number and body tag.