Northern Dave
Thank you for taking the time to take those pictures and measure the location.
The seller just did a quick check for the trunk drip rail stamp. He said he could not see anything. But it may be there under a few layers of paint.
So I quess for whatever reason that vin plates was removed at some point in the car's life.
I am not too concerned about complete numbers matching. It is a decent driver quality car that is not too expensive.
4. The EL5 paint code was not used until VERY late in the model year. The first Bahama Yellow cars were coded both 99 or 96.
5. Yes, the 312 SCHEDULED production date would be too early for the car to be painted that color BUT remember that is just a SCHEDULED date and the car could have been held up in production for enough time to have actually been built and painted in April which could explain the B.Y. paint being correct.