This was the last one, but I will keep updating the VIN list, and post the updated versions here on FDF from time to time.
And if you "find" a Fiat Dino Chassis plate/ Pininfarina No., please share
First of all, well done Erik for all the work, time and effort you have put into this research. It will add to all the work various other people have done over the years to get a better understanding of the Dino timeline!
Your theory seems entirely plausible, even entirely correct - As I have been coordinating the Dino Club, Archive and Register for over fifteen years now, together with various representatives from other clubs and registers around the world, we have built up a large database of Chassis numbers, engine numbers, pictures, etc. It would be great to combine our information with yours to have one source of truth.
I also have the Mike Morris archive, for those of you who don't know, Mike Morris write the infamous book "FIAT Dino, Ferrari by another name" and was very active setting up Dino clubs around the world in the 1980s. He collected a huge amount of information about owners with thousands of pictures in photo albums (real photos, not digital!!) plus technical documents/manuals, magazines, press photos, etc etc. I obtained all of this from Mike about ten years ago and I am still finding interesting stuff in it.
I have quite a few photos of cars from the 1980s so if anyone is interested in seeing if I have theirs then please drop me an email. The Archive website is the old Club one: www.dinoitalia.com and the email is dinoitalia.com@gmail.com
As well as the spares numbers and chassis numbers it would be great if we could collect as many complete number combinations for cars as possible, i.e.: Chassis num, Spares num, Engine num, Bodywork num (where available), Colour num (for the later 2400 models).
Thanks for the excellent research and write-ups - some great detective work.
I see my car (2400 Coupe 4211) is mostly '?' characters in the 135BC table - so here is some info.
135BC0004211, Azzurro Metallizato (as far as I understand anyway) It seems to have been first registered in Abruzzo region, Italy. Exported to Canada (Nova Scotia in 1988) - then to the middle of Canada (Saskatchewan) in 1993, then to Vancouver, then imported to USA/New Jersey in 2009 - where I bought it in 2011 and brought it to California.
Engine number 135c.0000006332
The rest is clear in the pictures I hope.
Thanks again,
-Richard
Just adding my 2 cents to the debate:
- According to the MMB, there has been 25 chassis prototypes shared by AS and AC, but, as far as I know, we’ve never had a clue on what the repartition between AC and AS was. Maybe the difference between ricambi number and chassis numbers of early AC/AS will provide the answer (I’ve not already checked all the details in the files provided by Erik).
- Because the differences between AC/AS et BC/BS are so important, BC/BS prototypes must have been used. How many of them? With what chassis numbers? I don’t remember to have seen discussions on that matter which may have an influence on the total #of cars produced. Maybe the ricambi number can help us sorting this out. We already know that there is a “glitsch” at the moment of the transition between AC/AS and BC/BS because of the existence of AC3670 that should have been BC3670 according to MMB and various other sources. Maybe the missing chassis numbers between the last AC chassis number reported in the MMB and AC3670 have something to do with the BC/BS prototypes as we know from AC/AS prototypes that they do have chassis numbers in the regular serie. Thus, the BC/BS prototype’s chassis numbers, if they actually have existed, have to be subtracted of the total number of cars produced.
- I’m not convinced that the total # of cars produced can be better estimated with the ricambi number than with chassis numbers. The reason is very simple: at the end of BC/BS production, the difference between chassis numbers and ricambi numbers is quite significant. And as each car has to have a chassis number, we should have heard of cars above le last chassis number usually quoted for BC/BS. I’m quite confident with Erik’s work that cars where produced in increasing ricambi numbers and not chassis numbers. But the logic used to conclude that cars where produced in increasing ricambi numbers is useless to determine whether or not, there were “jumps” in the Ricambi sequence. And my bet is that there actually were jumps from time to time, explaining why the difference between ricambi number and chassis number tends to increase with the time. I think that sometimes, cars were produced and then, at the end of the production line, their ricambi number was used to update the parts catalog (this is Erik’s hypothesis). But there also might have been situations where a modification was planned in advance. For instance, if I have 20 “old design” parts left on the production line or if I expect the parts supplier to deliver another 20 parts batch, I can update in advance the parts catalog with current ricambi number +20 for the new design. Then, if one of the old parts appears to have an issue, is broken during the mounting process or has finally not been delivered by the supplier, what will the people of the production line do? They can modify the parts catalog, stating that finally the new design is from current ricambi number +19. But they also can “jump” in the ricambi sequence and just skipp one number when they stamp the ricambi number on the first car with the new design. One can easily understand that at the production line level, it is easier to just ask a colleague to skipp one number in the ricambi sequence than to ask an update of the parts catalogue to the boss, being known that the parts catalogue might already have been printed and dispatched with current ricambi number +20.
- No direct link with this discussion, but there actually was some “Italian mess” in the construction of our Dinos: Erik has spotted an anomaly linked with the homologation number, but there were also discrepancies in the design of the identification plate according to the parts catalogue and what we see in reality. Also, the driver’s manual of BC cars displays a lockable glove box that I’ve never seen so far. Our cars were built during an era where ISO quality standards didn’t really exist. Fiat probably had some equivalent standards, but have they fully implemented those for such small production levels? And what about Bertone and Pininfarina?
As a conclusion, my assumptions are the following:
I think that for sure, cars were produced in increasing ricambi numbers rather than in increasing chassis numbers and that ricambi number is the key to determine the technical configuration of a given car.
However, there cannot be huge discrepancies between ricambi and chassis numbers as built chassis needs to be physically stored somewhere and thus, the factory couldn’t retain a chassis for months. So, a chassis number order swap between chassis from the same truck has certainly happened. Swaps may also have happened because of some specific options that made it necessary to retain a given chassis on the production line. But on the long term, ricambi numbers and chassis numbers should evolve in parallel, because each car needs a chassis number AND a ricambi number.
To determine the total number of cars produced, I would rely on the chassis numbers rather than on the ricambi number, because of the jump in ricambi numbers trick that must have happened because of the significant difference between the 2 numbers at the end of the production. So, to determine the total produced cars, I would use the usual formula “highest known chassis number”-“lowest known chassis number”+1 rather than “highest ricambi”-“lowest ricambi”+1. And we know for instance with AC 3670 that it is the highest known chassis number of the AC serie but not the highest ricambi number of this serie, meaning that lower AC chassis numbers were assembled after AC 3670.
doublegarage wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 8:47 pm
Hi Erik,
Thanks for the excellent research and write-ups - some great detective work.
I see my car (2400 Coupe 4211) is mostly '?' characters in the 135BC table - so here is some info.
135BC0004211, Azzurro Metallizato (as far as I understand anyway) It seems to have been first registered in Abruzzo region, Italy. Exported to Canada (Nova Scotia in 1988) - then to the middle of Canada (Saskatchewan) in 1993, then to Vancouver, then imported to USA/New Jersey in 2009 - where I bought it in 2011 and brought it to California.
Engine number 135c.0000006332
The rest is clear in the pictures I hope.
Thanks again,
-Richard
serial number plate.jpg
eng number.jpg
Hi Richard
Thank you for the feedback, and information about your car, Super
Thank you for sharing info about your car. But I have already picked it up, when it was for sale in june 2023 by Collecting Car Auctions
So I already have 21 pictures of it, including the chassis plate. But the engine number I didn`t have, so again Thx.
Hi,
I've got some new information and my idea of the order things were done when producing the Fiat Dinos - mainly about the production before moving to Maranello, but it probably applies there to.
I say "idea", it is a bit more than that as I have been talking to Pininfarina and also Leonardo Fioravanti. This process may also help clear up the "mystery" of the numbers...
1) The "Platform" of each car was made by Fiat, this was the basic chassis up to a certain point ready for a body to be fitted. It was assigned a Chassis Number.
2) These platforms were sent in shipments to Pininfarina and Bertone where they took them off of the delivery lorries and put them into their bodywork production line (it was not a real production line but a workplace) and each one was assigned a body number. Some of the Pininfarina body numbers match the chassis number (when I say match, I mean for example chassis #0102 might have body number #190102), while most do not match. They didn't make any great effort to assign the same number.
3) When fitted with a body, the car was sent back again in bulk to Fiat to have the mechanical parts fitted. It was at this point that the Spares number was assigned. The spares numbers were incremental but they didn't necessarily match the chassis number and the order of the chassis numbers was not followed, they just picked cars off of the transporters and onto the production line (a real production line this time). Car #0102 might have come off the transporter before car #0098 so that was the order the spares numbers were assigned.
When trying to find out how many cars were built in total I believe that we need to find both the highest chassis number and also the highest spares number, but also the lowest of each to. Subtracting the lowest chassis number from the highest should give the same number as doing the same with the spares numbers and that is the total. As the production progressed, the relationship of the cars chassis number and the spares number is not linear, they jump about and sometimes switch from one being higher that the other.
One interesting fact I got from an original Pininfarina document is that the last 1st series Spider has chassis number #0533. Being the last series 1 car this one also has Spares number 500.
I'd be interested in your comments,
Regards,
Lincoln
