So looks like for the Mustang they used the make for the unit number in '84 and '85 and the model for the unit number in '86 and later. As in....

F = Ford
M = Mustang

Looks like the Crown Vic continued with the F designate, and Dodge continued with D, and and Plymouth continued with P, after '85.

Mick, Texas DPS may have made the change from F to M on the Mustangs during the 1985 model year. Here is one with a higher VIN and a #M5-xxx number:

http://www.specialservicemustang.net...info204948.htm

Hmmm...interesting.

FF188608 was shipped to a dealer in TX but there are no other records for that VIN, which is why nothing is showing up in the TX title search. Wonder what happened to that one.

There isn't much listed about 188603 on AutoCheck:

Vehicle: 1985 Ford Mustang LX (1FABP26M5FF188603)
Event date Location Odometer reading Data Source Details

03/18/1985 TX Independent Source VEHICLE MANUFACTURED AND SHIPPED TO DEALER

12/18/1991 TX 80,690 Motor Vehicle Dept. ODOMETER READING FROM DMV

03/29/1996 AUSTIN, TX Motor Vehicle Dept. TITLE (Title #:00022200050014898)


Using the Texas DMV site, the last title issued matches the AutoCheck report:

Vehicle Make: FORD
Vehicle Model: MLX
Vehicle Year: 1985
Vehicle Identification Number: 1FABP26M5FF188603
Title Issue Date: 1996/03/29
Title Number: 00022200050014898

The F5 numbers were the Baby LTD's they had. If you look at the description it says 4DR.

Tom

I just saw the car you were talking about and can't remember it, I do know that
M6-364 and 366 were Civilian color cars and not Black & Whites,.

Fox LTDs sedans were P39. I didn't see any in those lists.

Saw plenty of Panther LTD sedans.

There are 3 85's Lot # 16-18 on the list with the 85 &86 cars.

Tom

Ah...there they are...was looking at the wrong list. Those three are part of a batch of 60 (GF212804-GF212863)

Had Mustangs VINs on the mind...I meant to type FG212804-FG212863.

As part of Tom's auction information, we found 3 Texas DPS Mustangs from the 1991 model year:

http://www.specialservicemustang.net...info140239.htm
http://www.specialservicemustang.net...info140241.htm
http://www.specialservicemustang.net...info140242.htm


I wonder what might have happened to those rare cars? They are part of an 11-car CUN batch of VINs, and only the last 9 cars came back with records on the Texas DMV website.

I put some "want ads" out on various craigslists looking for info about SSPs that might still be on the road today. Got a hit on a 1986 FBI unit!

Somebody that knew of the car, who also purportedly is a multi-SSP owner, sent me a pic of the lower left corner of the window sticker and told a previous owner of the car about the ad I put up. The previous owner contacted me and gave me his phone number so I called him and chatted a bit. He sold it a couple of years ago, and still keeps in contact with the current owner. Hopefully I can get some more info on it.

Bill put up a page for the car here: http://www.specialservicemustang.net...info267059.htm

Mick, that is incredible that you found this car! Not only did you track down a range of likely SSPs that nobody knew about, but you were able to find a car through your CL posting. AWESOME! :D Hopefully, you will be able to find more like this. In terms of this car, if it looks like all 32 cars from the batch were ordered by the same dealer, then I suspect it would be worth ordering Marti Reports for the first and last cars in the batch so we could confirm all 32 cars. :)

Again, NICE JOB!

This is one of the coolest things I've heard all year... I'd love to own an '86 FBI coupe :)

Good stuff.

Bill/Mick, other than what's in the pic, did you get any confirmation that the '86 is an SSP?

Event date.......Location......Details
06/XX/1986.......MO............VEHICLE MANUFACTURED AND SHIPPED TO DEALER

That's on every one of them. :D

I have a couple more "info wanted" ads for some in the same batch. We'll see if I get any more hits. :D :D

I did not get any more info but I'm working on it. :) The previous owner that I talked to on the phone said he might have some auction paperwork on his home PC. I told him I was also looking for a pic of the door tag and buck tags, and he said he would contact the current owner and see if he would share that.

Cool....I'm interested in seeing if that batch is a consecutively numbered group of SSPs or if it's a set of special ordered DSO 83 cars.

I included these VINs in my next batch of 10 Marti Reports, ordered today. Once they come in, then we'll know for sure if they are SSPs or not (unless Mick receives more pictures). If we jumped the gun on calling them SSPs, it will be easy enough to remedy.

They may be SSPs. The FBI ordered both civilian and package cars, and sometimes both in the same year.

While waiting for the Marti Reports to confirm the 32-car batch containing the 1986 FBI car, along with reports for TxDPS (from 1983, 1984, and 1986) and FHP (1988), I thought I would post up a recent addition. Here is the page on a 1989 government/GSA Mustang -

http://www.specialservicemustang.net...info283823.htm


This is the 3rd GSA SSP to turn up in that batch of 138 cars, which also contains a likely OSP Mustang at the beginning. :)

Re: KF283705 being a likely OSP....other known OSPs went through the same dealer. (74C017 = Damerow Beaverton Ford). ;)

Great work. I'm learning as I keep up with the VIN project reading, so I only pose this question to better educate myself. When you refer to a VIN range, can it be said for certain cars in that range are SSPs? Or is this just merely one more "check list item", or an "SSP confimation method" if you will, that folks can use as they try and verify cars believed as SSPs and maybe missing door sticker, buck tags, etc.? Thanks for helping educate me on this one. :)

Mike, I hope that I am understanding your question as I type my reply. The rationale behind using AutoCheck (or other online methods) to confirm SSPs is flawed. :eek: Or perhaps a better word would be "imperfect". Let me explain.

If we look at the 1982 CHP notchbacks, we know with certainty the SSPs that are part of that VIN range. Using Marti Reports, we have confirmed the first and last VINs that were assigned in that DSO. We have verified the 1982 SSP notchbacks using photos and the California smog database. We can use AutoCheck reports to help document those remaining cars whose VINs are not activated because we are 100% certain the CHP ordered and used these cars.

But what about other batches with confirmed SSPs? On many of the FHP cars, we were able to confirm VINs as SSPs through pictures, auction paperwork, and Florida's DMV website. However, there are instances where we found DMV information for cars in the same batch that were not sandwiched between confirmed SSPs, and we haven't confirmed the DSO to match it to the FHP. Those SSPs are listed as "unconfirmed", in terms of agency use.

We all know of those 1988 SSPs which were extra cars not used by the OSP, with most of the N-I-S cars being sold to Saleen for conversion. If we order Marti Reports, we could establish a VIN range and use AutoCheck to confirm the ones in-between as SSPs. But which ones were used by the OSP, and which ones were not? It's not clear. Yes, they are all SSPs, but we cannot ID how they were used.

Then there's some of the 1993 South Carolina SSPs like this one...

http://www.specialservicemustang.net...info210439.htm

...which were ordered but never put into service. Yes, we are able to ID this car as Never-In-Service, but we cannot ID the rest of the cars in the batch (in terms of use), even if we confirm the beginning and ending VINs in the DSO.

Does that answer your question? :)

Mike,

To follow-up on what Bill said:

We know, from auction records, that the SSPs were batch-produced with consecutive VIN numbers assigned to the order (DSO). So if agency "X" ordered 10 Mustangs, they would have been assigned (usually) consecutive VINs, ie. 100001 through 100009 (last 6). In this example, if we have a confirmed SSP with the VIN 100005, and the list of consecutive VINs around 0005 only shows a block of 10, it's a pretty safe bet that we've identified the other 9. Conversely, the list might show more than 10 grouped together, which then requires more work to determine where the 10 fall, ie. a group of 40 consecutive VINS, where Agency "X" ordered 10, Agency "Y" ordered 25, and Agency "Z" ordered 5.

Does that help?

Bill and Mike - Thanks for your posts...you've both done a great job of understanding my questions and to help clarify and educate me on this aspect of the project. The SSP VIN project is great for the hobby and an interesting journey. The detective work that has occurred and is ongoing is very interesting to watch take place. I know many have contributed from the SSP community and we will all benefit form the hard work, so that's great as well. I appreciate everyone's efforts...it is hard work, but a labor of love I'm sure.

Here is an '87 FBI car that some of you might remember from the movie "Silence of the Lambs". We've talked about this one before, but for those that weren't around back then, this car was wrecked during a test at the FBI academy. It is also NOT an SSP, just a DSO 83 car. What was left of the car was crushed back in 2008.

Our VIN registry did not originally show this one in a consecutive batch, just sandwiched in the middle of two other batches. This is probably because there are no Carfax records that exist for this one; it was sold to GSA and never made it out of the agency. Also, most GSA cars aren't technically titled until their first sale at auction. So, this is a minor glitch in our project that only affects a select few cars.

Hi Mike - What were the circumstances around when that picture was taken. Given the rust it would seem it was some years later. Thanks.

It was....I took the pic in 2005.

That's a cool pic, and an interesting back-story. Thanks for posting Mike!

No prob, Mick. If you get time, could you take a look at the next 4 after this one to see if they are missing records altogether or just not included because they aren't coupes?

I'll try to look through everything later. I happened to do a lot of VIN research that year (compared to every other 'aero year') so I should have a lot of stuff to look through.

HF219534
HF219537
HF219545

All three of them have no records for any body or engine (P40A, P40E, P41A, P41E, P42E, P44A, P44E, or P45E). If those three were actually built as 5.0L coupes that would have made a group of 28 straight P40E VINs. (HF219535 and HF219536 were also 5.0L coupes)

It would be interesting to see if that group of 9, 7, and 7 VINs in the VIN Project, and 219535 and 219536, are GSA/DSO 83-xxxx.

My thoughts exactly. Thanks for looking into it.

Well, the attached Marti Reports confirm that the first and last cars in that block of 32 cars are DSO 83 vehicles, but they are not SSP Mustangs. I modified the page created for this FBI unit to identify it as not being a SSP, and removed the link from the Project (unless we want to ID civilian cars in our project when found). The car that Mick located still has a very interesting story about how it was found. Hopefully, some more cars will turn up through his Craigslist want-ads.

Nice job, Bill.

A couple more in that batch look to be still on the road today...GF267062 in VA and GF267067 in CA. I put out want ads for info from those two. I am going to call the previous owner of the FBI car again this weekend, to see if I can get more info from him and or the current owner.

Thanks. I'd like to solicit your opinions. On the list of VINs, would it be OK if we noted these DSO 83 cars as civilian Mustangs ordered by the GSA, yet do not make the VIN a hyperlink to a vehicle page? We did a similar thing on the batch of 1985 CHP Mustangs when we found through Marti Reports that the first two cars were not SSPs.

I think indicating where we have verified that a car is NOT an SSP would be useful information. It's only text. ;)

I agree.