Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums  

Almost all of the 1983-88 Cougars and T-Birds were built in Lorain, OH (H in the VIN). For at least part of 1985 Ford also concurrently built the Thunderbird/Cougar lines in Atlanta, GA (A in the VIN). After 1985, production shifted exclusively to Lorain to allow Atlanta to build the Taurus/Sable in 1986.

The Atlanta VINs are not the same as the Lorain VINs. In other words, you could have H101234 and A101234, just as an example, at the end of two cars' VIN numbers. It gets weird but that's how Ford assigned VINs. Just FYI.

I have original 1984 and 1986 documentation for my current cars (Ford 999 report, built sheets, buck tags) if it will help. Probably the biggest area for collaboration will be for the original radios. Each radio type has a code on the built sheet, and that's the only place where you'll find that info. If you know what original radio was in your car then we can figure out a database for those. There will be some other areas (fabrics, outside trim, etc.) where we just have to put our heads together and deduce things. AFAIK nobody has really tried to decode the build sheets objectively for our cars. I'll help all I can.

now that you mention spring tags. for all the rust on my car, most of the tags were still on it. I did save what I could as far as tags. everything on my car was still original when it got put away.
let me know what were looking for, I'll help.

I got mine and I'm afraid to remove it.

Interesting info..thanks!

I've seen quite a few 1983-1985 "A" Atlanta VIN cars so I wonder what the ratio of Atlanta cars is to Lorain cars?

I have one of each (83's TBirds) and the Lorain car has a buck tag and build sheet under the seat, and the Atlanta car does not. Where was your 84 built? Did you find a build sheet or have a buck tag?

I also found some paint stamps on the Lorain car but not the Atlanta car. I know in the Mustang world Ford operated differently in different plants so I'm sure that holds true for Thunderbirds/Cougars too.

Another weird thing to remember about the VIN is the consecutive unit number does not necessarily relate to a production date.

I have not looked at my build sheet yet so I 'm not sure if it lists a build date but I find it odd the data plate on the door jamb only has a month and year, no date.

Any info any one has to offer, including pictures and documentation, would be helpful.

Well, you have to remember that I live a little over an hour away from the Lorain, OH plant so I tend to see nothing but Ohio-built cars. Atlanta cars are very rare here. But not just for that reason, I still believe Atlanta cars are pretty uncommon. My guess is about a 15- or 20-to-1 ratio. Obviously you're going to find more in the southern U.S. than anywhere else. And visually they look the same, so there's really no way to check until you see the VIN plate. Hard to do on the freeway LOL.

I never did get the full story about why there were two plants building our cars during one model year, although according to the books that I have, the most aero-Fox Cougars and T-Birds were built in 1985. With two plants building them, that's not really hard to do! Apparently there was a lot of demand for them. That was a little before my serious interest in these cars, unfortunately, so I don't know much about that.

For the record, my '84 is Lorain built and I have both the build sheet and the buck tag for it. Same with the '86. Build sheets were in the passenger seat frames as in Jerry's photo.


Some people have reported finding build sheets under the rear seat cushion or behind the rear seat panels. An old, old Ford custom was to place them on top of the gas tank although I don't think that happened with our cars. I suppose it's even possible to find the build sheet underneath the carpeting, for the adventurous.

For the build date, there are a few places on the car where you might find something dated, especially with the 1983-84 cars: rear quarters inside the trunk lid lip; top of the cowl, under the hood; side apr0ns in the engine bay; sometimes on the K-member. I've found that those dates are generally within a month or two of each other. This indicates how fresh the parts were and gives a good, general timeframe that usually coincides with the door tag build date. I think the reason why a specific date isn't found may be because Ford scheduled the cars to be built during a particular week sometime. Back then they weren't as optimized with their computers as far as scheduling builds. Today, with modern techniques, more computerization, and robotics, it's probably standard practice to narrow down a car's build date. Back then, not so much.

As far as build dates go, there was a build date that was “ink stamped” on the car when it went down the line. I have found that most ’85-’86 cars have it on the driver side shock tower and that most ’87-’88 cars have it on the radiator support.

Brent

As far as build dates go, there was a build date that was “ink stamped” on the car when it went down the line. I have found that most ’85-’86 cars have it on the driver side shock tower and that most ’87-’88 cars have it on the radiator support. It is a yellow number with the month and day. Most likely though it will only still be there if the engine compartment was never thoroughly cleaned as it doesn’t take much effort to wipe it away if any kind of cleaner/degreaser was used.
 
 
 
Brent