Has anyone ever heard of a fender tag missing from the factory?

[Cranky]

There’s a reason the tags are metal and attached early in the process. Paper would not survive some of the assembly process.

The build sheets were all along the assembly line and is why there are so many of them in the car. As the car was being constructed, someone was supposed to throw one in. I did have a 70 ragtop Challenger 440 RT that got at least one wrong build sheet thrown in it though....it was for a 70 ragtop Challenger with a /6!

 

[Bart K]

I don't care what the owner knows of what he thinks was repainted.....Obviously, during the repaint that area received paint or touch up............I have to call BS on the owner.....

BS can be anywhere......glovebox, under rear seat, under bucket/front bench seat bottoms. or even behind the seat back cover on bucket seats.....If a LR built car, most BS got tossed at the factory

So it is possible the owner is full of it or he is mis-remembering since it was 48 years ago. One more fact is that the repaint was done with a Corvette silver which had more metallic in it, so I think one could tell if under the hood had been touched up. Beyond all that, do we think it is possible/plausible for a car to leave the factory without a fender tag?

 

[hanks73340]

 

[Cranky]

Got some popcorn to share??

 

[moparnation74]

So it is possible the owner is full of it or he is mis-remembering since it was 48 years ago. One more fact is that the repaint was done with a Corvette silver which had more metallic in it, so I think one could tell if under the hood had been touched up. Beyond all that, do we think it is possible/plausible for a car to leave the factory without a fender tag?

More bits and pieces to the puzzle...Geez, anything else we dont know, lol........Now the exterior was in silver....Would have been nice to mention that earlier......Maybe someone just touched up the holes.....Maybe the tag was missing from day one......What we do know is he can't find the BS and does not have a FT......

Anything is possible from the factory back in the day.....It just cannot be proven.....I personally have never seen an example other than cars that had them stolen ..........

 

[69Coronetrt]

The build sheets were all along the assembly line and is why there are so many of them in the car. As the car was being constructed, someone was supposed to throw one in. I did have a 70 ragtop Challenger 440 RT that got at least one wrong build sheet thrown in it though....it was for a 70 ragtop Challenger with a /6!

True but broadcast sheets are post paint and based on components or sub assemblies. The metal fender tag is designed to withstand the BIW pre paint process as well as paint.

The question was regarding a car not having a fender tag. My question was if the car did not have a tag, how was the traditional BIW assembly process communicated as well as the paint process?

 

[Bart K]

More bits and pieces to the puzzle...Geez, anything else we dont know, lol........Now the exterior was in silver....Would have been nice to mention that earlier......Maybe someone just touched up the holes.....Maybe the tag was missing from day one......What we do know is he can't find the BS and does not have a FT......

Anything is possible from the factory back in the day.....It just cannot be proven.....I personally have never seen an example other than cars that had them stolen ..........

Again, the parts and pieces do not matter for the original question, but I understand your point of view. So what I have gathered from this thread is that anything was possible back in the day. Although it was possible for a fender tag to be missing from the factory, it would be extremely unlikely for that to happen. The fact that you have never seen an example of a fender tag missing from the factory, and no one else on this thread has reported that they are aware of any example of a fender tag missing from the factory tells me that this owner is either one in a million who is missing a fender tag from the factory, but he could never prove it, or it is much more likely that the fender tag was stolen or lost in some other way.

The owner of the car was telling me his story and I said I would post it on this forum as there are literally thousands of years of knowledge and experience available here, and I would pass along what I found out. I thank you all for your comments, and I apologize if I ruffled any feathers.

 

[moparnation74]

Again, the parts and pieces do not matter for the original question, but I understand your point of view. So what I have gathered from this thread is that anything was possible back in the day. Although it was possible for a fender tag to be missing from the factory, it would be extremely unlikely for that to happen. The fact that you have never seen an example of a fender tag missing from the factory, and no one else on this thread has reported that they are aware of any example of a fender tag missing from the factory tells me that this owner is either one in a million who is missing a fender tag from the factory, but he could never prove it, or it is much more likely that the fender tag was stolen or lost in some other way.

The owner of the car was telling me his story and I said I would post it on this forum as there are literally thousands of years of knowledge and experience available here, and I would pass along what I found out. I thank you all for your comments, and I apologize if I ruffled any feathers.

You didn't ruffle any feathers.......To the diehard OE community, parts and pieces matter and tell the full story........

Now let me throw a curveball. People have found BS's for other cars in their car. Not a common thing but has been proven to happen. So, you can "never say never" when it comes to Ma Mopar.......Unfortunately, this scenario hasn't been proven.....

I too was waiting to see if anyone else chimed in.......

 

[YY1]

Build sheets for a different car with a matching interior are quite common.
I've had several, and know of many more.

With the information from the OP that was withheld, there certainly is "opportunity" for the tag to get removed as it was not under the watchful eye of the original owner for it's entire existence, and it could even be argued that there was "motive"- it was stolen after all.

I'm not sure the owner's eye could even be properly described as "watchful" since he apparently never knew of or at least never attempted to view the tag for decades.

 

[khryslerkid]

The one thing that might answer a missing tag would be signs of a repaint under the hood. Any signs of this would place doubt about it having been there then removed when painted and not replaced. The fact that it was stolen might raise the question about the thieves removing it and it wasn't noticed after it's return to the owner.

I'd want to do a good inspection before making any conclusions. Anything is possible.

 

[matthon]

I had an original low mileage car, the original owner said when he purchased it brand new, at the dealer, or in transit, it was damaged and repaired.

That might explain the original owner being correct, and the fender tag missing.

The paint under the hood was not that great from new, so any repairs to an inner fender or replacement could easily match the rest of the under hood area.

 

[Bart K]

I was talking with a friend of the owner, and he makes a good point. Back in 1969, many if not most owners of these cars were not aware of the fender tag, or did not care about it. They bought the car for the way it looked, sounded, performed and for a reasonable price. I may be wrong about that, but only when these cars became "collectible" did people really start caring about the fender tag and other documentation that could "prove" a car was original and therefore more valuable in terms of a sale price. Most guys bought these cars and ran the **** out of them on the street or on weekends at the drag strip without a thought of the fender tag at the time.

 

[dadsbee]

True story... ran the **** out of it, my Father didn't even keep a single piece of sales paperwork because it was just a car... but 50 years later the tag is still there!

 

[Cranky]

I was talking with a friend of the owner, and he makes a good point. Back in 1969, many if not most owners of these cars were not aware of the fender tag, or did not care about it. They bought the car for the way it looked, sounded, performed and for a reasonable price. I may be wrong about that, but only when these cars became "collectible" did people really start caring about the fender tag and other documentation that could "prove" a car was original and therefore more valuable in terms of a sale price. Most guys bought these cars and ran the **** out of them on the street or on weekends at the drag strip without a thought of the fender tag at the time.

I know I did!! Got my hands on a good running 383 4 speed 67 Coronet that had a rough interior but a decent body in 74 so the interior was gutted out. The only other thing that was bad was the windshield but at that time, they weren't worth fixing that stuff and bought lots of cars like that for less than 500 bucks and some were had for 200.

True story... ran the **** out of it, my Father didn't even keep a single piece of sales paperwork because it was just a car... but 50 years later the tag is still there!

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All of my cars still had the fender tags. I knew they were supposed to be there but never paid much attention to them. Even the cars I bought to part out still had them. Heck, bought a real clean 70 383 4barrel Challenger for 2000 in 1980 (kinda high at that point but it was nice) and had it for nearly 15 years before deciding to decode it and that's when I found out it had been built on my birthday.

 

[moparmusclecars]

Sounds like BS from the owner as far as the tag to me, too

 

[69hemibeep]

Gone is gone, does it really matter when?

 

[SoCal440GTX]

Sounds like when I came home drunk from the bar with puke on my shirt. I told the wife a guy puked on me and gave me $10 to clean the shirt. She asked why there was a $20 in my pocket. I said he **** in my pants too.

 

[68Moparmaniac]

I believe the fender tag was attached right before paint because if you look at the tag it has a crease next to the screw hole which was from folding it up to paint under the tag then it was folded back down and fastened with a unpainted screw. One screw should be body color and one bare... I'm with the general conscientious that the owner is mistaken or there was a repaint somewhere down the line and was forgotten. No worries because you can have another made...