{"id":50279,"date":"2018-03-28T09:41:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T16:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=50279"},"modified":"2018-03-30T06:22:38","modified_gmt":"2018-03-30T13:22:38","slug":"a-vin-decoder-that-really-decodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/a-vin-decoder-that-really-decodes\/","title":{"rendered":"A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"jetpack-slideshow-noscript robots-nocontent\">This slideshow requires JavaScript.<\/p><div id=\"gallery-50279-1-slideshow\" class=\"jetpack-slideshow-window jetpack-slideshow jetpack-slideshow-black\" data-trans=\"fade\" data-autostart=\"1\" data-gallery=\"[{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Lead-Art-min-3.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50295&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Click Here to Begin Slideshow\\n\\nImage by Enilda Aguilar\\n\\nTogether with Spork Marketing, H\\u0026#038;H Classic Parts has created what they claim is the best online VIN decoding tool for many classic Chevy models. There aren\\u2019t many tools readily available online that will give highly detailed information about the production of an individual vehicle. Information on early model Chevy muscle cars is spotty at best. The new VIN decoder was tested with a handful of cars.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/1958_Chevy_Impala_3896234063-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50283&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Company Claims Decoding Tool Gives More Information on More Models&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons\\n\\nH\\u0026#038;H Classic Parts for Chevrolets is an online and catalog supplier of parts for Classic Chevies with an extensive catalogue of parts, some of which are hard to find, that\\u2019s been in business since 1987. Some older Chevy models have very limited information available online. Specialized tools are required to obtain information even basic information, and they\\u2019re spread all over the Internet. For this reason, H\\u0026#038;H management team Kerman, Liz and Tray Smith commissioned Spork Marketing to build a single location tool that covers the vehicles for which they carry parts.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/1280px-1957_Chevrolet_Bel_Air_Convertible_32018846855-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50282&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Short VINs?&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons\\n\\nQuite often the tools are unable to give you any information whatsoever about your vehicle or will tell you that the VIN is not valid because it\\u2019s either too short or has a missing or invalid check digit. There are some tools out there, if you look hard enough, that will tell you some information (some in PDF format like this one that helps with the Nova above), but until now there was no tool that combined five classic Chevy models in one tool.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Dan-Prete-1969-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50290&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Dan-Prete-1969-min&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Photo by Dan Prete\\n\\n\\nThe companies claim the tool is able to tell older Chevy Tri-Five, Nova\\\/Chevy II, Camaro, Impala and Chevelle owners where their car was built, what year, what type of engine it had and the model and body style. A sample VIN of 114270W00001 was given in the press release as an example with the following information given:\\n\\u2022\\tThe car came from the factory equipped with a V8 engine, size not given\\n\\u2022\\tIt is a Nova\\n\\u2022\\tIt is a 2-door coupe that was\\n\\u2022\\tProduced at the Willow Run plant in\\n\\u2022\\t1970\\n\\nRacingJunk tried that VIN in several other decoding tools found in a Google search. All of them said the VIN was invalid because it was too short. The required number of digits is given by the tool as 17 and the given number only has 12, which is how it was back then. Tools were even tried that specifically said they work on older Chevy Nova\\\/Chevy II cars.\\n\\nGeneral Motors made it even harder for an outside party to create a workable database because they didn\\u2019t use the same convention in creating the numbers across the years and makes and models\\\/sub-models. For example, from Facebook Steve Oakins owns a 1960 Chevy C10 Pickup. Its VIN starts with a 0. The second character is a letter.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Chevrolet_Chevy_II-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50288&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Spork Marketing Tells RacingJunk about the Tool They Created&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons\\n\\nSpork Marketing is a marketing company that specializes in automotive parts. RacingJunk spoke with Spork Marketing president Jason Lancaster via email about the tool. He went into more detail about the tool and its creation. He said, \\u201cIf I were to sum up the H\\u0026#038;H VIN decoder that we created, it would be thusly:\\n\\n\\u0026#8211; It decodes VINs so you don\\u0026#8217;t have to. Most of the older Chevy vehicles have enthusiasts who have \\u0026#8220;mapped\\u0026#8221; out VINs so that owners can tell what number\\\/letter means what. (eg. if the 3rd character is an \\u0026#8216;A\\u0026#8217;, than you have a V8, or whatever). No figuring out what character means mean \\u0026#8211; just type it in. :)&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/CHEVY-Impala_Hardtop-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50289&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Versatility&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons\\n\\n\\u0026#8211; It works with multiple models. There are a couple of model specific VIN decoders, but nothing we know of that decodes VINs for multiple models. We currently support Camaro, Chevelle, Impala, Nova and Tri-Five models.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/j7akg6-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50292&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Accuracy&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Lay It Low forums\\n\\n\\u0026#8211; It\\u0026#8217;s highly accurate. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we spent hundreds of man hours checking this thing. We dug into the GM Heritage site\\u0026#8217;s documentation for every single year of vehicle that\\u0026#8217;s covered, and then painstakingly came up with a ruleset. Several hundred lines of code were written to make this work.\\n\\n\\u0026#8211; It\\u0026#8217;s great for checking if a car\\u0026#8217;s VIN matches its equipment. If you\\u0026#8217;re looking at a Tri-Five that claims to be original, a quick VIN decoder check will ascertain if the equipment\\\/packaging matches the provided VIN.\\u201d&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/25u4hec-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50280&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;What\\u2019s Better in This Tool&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Lay It Low forums\\n\\nWhen asked what was better in this tool than the multitude of others online, Lancaster told RacingJunk, \\u201cThe tool includes more models now (we\\u2019re up to five).\\u201d In response to a question about whether there\\u2019s a specific database somewhere online or a group of databases that the tool queries, he said no \\u0026#8211; \\u201cAlso, there is no database, unfortunately. We wrote the code that does the lookup based on our own research.\\u201d&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/1962ImpalaSSc-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50284&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Limitations&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy The Poorman\\u2019s Off Chassis Restoration.com\\n\\nRacingJunk then asked why the information given in the sample VIN didn\\u2019t have any trim or color information. He said that was because \\u201cChevy\\u2019s old VIN system is fairly limited. You can\\u2019t tell people what their original features were, for example, because that information is not included in the VIN. There\\u2019s no central database of VINs either, so there\\u2019s nowhere to go to find out about order dates, MSRP, color codes and so on.\\u201d&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Flickr_-_DVS1mn_-_Tri-Five_Chevrolets-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50291&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Bogus VINs&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons\\n\\nLancaster then addresses the fact that some people have written to both H\\u0026#038;H and Spork to tell them they got bogus information when using the tool. He said that \\u201cyou\\u2019d be surprised by the numbers of bogus VINs people try to decode. I\\u2019m not sure if it\\u2019s because they don\\u2019t key them in correctly, or if they don\\u2019t have the correct number (written down), or if it\\u2019s a bogus VIN provided by a vehicle seller. Regardless, we get a lot of them.\\u201d&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/1967-Chevelle-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50286&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;The VIN Tag Should Not Be Confused with the Cowl Tag&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;The bottom tag in this photo is the VIN tag from a 1967 Chevelle. The top tag is the body code tag, and it contains information exclusive to Fisher Body and gives the body type and paint color. It is not recommended to remove either of these tags, as they are attached at the factory using special rivets.\\n\\nA vehicle\\u2019s VIN can tell some of the back story of an older Chevy muscle car. Another tag you may be familiar with is the Cowl Tag. This gives other vital information about the vehicle, some of which duplicates VIN information, but also trim and paint codes as well. As the name implies, the Cowl Tag is near the cowl on the firewall\\\/bulkhead on the upper driver\\u2019s side in the engine compartment.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Steve-Oakins-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50297&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;What Do Owners of the Listed Cars Say?&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Steve Oakins via Facebook\\n\\nRacingJunk then reached out to several owners of classic Chevrolets on Facebook for their opinion and their VINs to make comparisons with several tools. When Steve Oakins typed in his VIN, the tool wasn\\u2019t able to tell him anything on his C10 because it\\u2019s not yet covered by the tool. He had to search for hours until he found a PDF document that breaks down the vehicle information.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/chevelle-shoot-2-5-of-9-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50287&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;The Competition&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Photo by Tyler McCormack\\n\\nTyler McCormack, whose 1970 Chevelle was recently reported on at RacingJunk\\u2019s sister publication Hot Rod Hotline, was nice enough to allow RacingJunk to test his car\\u2019s VIN against the H\\u0026#038;H Tool, a Chevrolet Chevelle\\\/Malibu VIN chart from ChevyResource.org and a ChevelleStuff VIN decoder. All three say that it\\u2019s a 1970 Chevelle\\\/Malibu 2-Door Sport Coupe that was equipped with a V8. However, the H\\u0026#038;H tool says it was built at a \\u201cLeeds\\u201d plant. It was actually built at the Kansas City, Kansas plant; there was no Leeds plant. (Editor\\u0026#8217;s note: While there was indeed no Leeds plant technically speaking, the issue was more complicated than this; see the last slide for details!)&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/VIN-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50298&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Special Info&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Crankgyspsy.com\\n\\nAnother Facebook contact is the proud owner of a beautiful 1968 Chevelle. His is an authentic SS 396 (2-Door) Sport Coupe built in Atlanta. All three tools agree, although the chart says it is a \\u201c2-door notch back-hardtop coupe.\\u201d\\n\\nStefano Bimbi, from legendary NicKey Performance, was also nice enough to give RacingJunk some numbers and documentation available to collectors and dealers (for a fee) that gives a little more information than is normally available because they can look up production records.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Stefano1-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50296&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;VIN One&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Photo by Stefano Bimbi\\n\\nThe first VIN he shared (above) is for a 1961 Bubble Top Impala. The H\\u0026#038;H tool calls it a \\u201cV8 1800 2 Door Sport Coupe\\u201d and says it was built in Los Angeles in 1961. Another tool that RJ found called it a 2-door Sport coupe (bubble top).&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Keith-Lively-1968-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50294&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Checkmark for H\\u0026#038;H&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Photo by Keith Lively\\n\\nStefano also gave RacingJunk a printout with the VIN from a 1970 Yenko Nova. This printout is from one of the commercial sources that have been around for decades, the National Corvette Restorers Society, a treasure trove of Chevrolet production information. This document tells what dealership it was shipped to \\u0026#8211; Yenko Chevrolet \\u0026#8211; but not what plant it was built at. The H\\u0026#038;H tool accurately says it was built at Willow Run.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Keith-Lively-1966-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50293&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Agreement&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Photo by Keith Lively\\n\\nThe final document Stefano supplied was for a 1969 Camaro. The online tools that are available all agree that it is a V8 2-door coupe that was built at the Norwood plant. Again, Stefano\\u2019s document doesn\\u2019t mention that plant but does give the exact date of production and the original dealership it went to.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/1966_Chevrolet_Chevy_II_Sedan_9690994198-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50285&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;1966_Chevrolet_Chevy_II_Sedan_(9690994198)-min&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons\\n\\nStefano also took a look at the H\\u0026#038;H tool and said that online tools of its sort have been available almost since the advent of the Internet. This is true, but as Spork\\u2019s Lancaster said, while there may have been tools that give the same information available, none of them offer this convenience while covering so many years and models.\\n\\nGot an older Chevy you can\\u2019t find information about? Check it here. Let us know in the comments what you think.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/1970-chevelle-min.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;50336&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Editor\\u2019s Note: Update on the \\u201cError\\u201d That Was Found&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A VIN Decoder that Really Decodes&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Image courtesy Jason Lancaster, Spork Marketing.\\n\\nSpork\\u2019s Jason Alexander contacted the writer to thank him for writing this article and finding the error in the tool. He then wrote back to clarify what had happened. GM called the plant located in Kansas City the \\u201cLeeds Assembly Plant\\u201d (see image above). Thus, the tool\\u2019s reporting that the given VIN was for a 1970 Chevelle built at the Kansas City Plant was correct geographically while being incorrect according to the nomenclature of the time.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}]\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageGallery\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Together with Spork Marketing, H&#038;H Classic Parts has created what they claim is the best online VIN decoding tool for many classic Chevy models.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":50295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3447,3697,3470,4879],"tags":[39,687,4892,5879,1074,41,4888,5878,55,5877],"class_list":["post-50279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classic","category-galleries","category-news","category-slideshow","tag-chevrolet","tag-classic-cars","tag-galleries","tag-hh-classic-parts","tag-mike-aguilar","tag-news","tag-slideshow","tag-spork-marketing","tag-tools","tag-vin-decoder"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Lead-Art-min-3.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-d4X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50279"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50337,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50279\/revisions\/50337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}