'85 Taillight lens stamped '83

[Ruby Fan]

Not trying to lure you in, just to give you info: I noticed when I looked closely at the taillight lens(red) on my '85 it has a coding that shows that it is molded(?) modeled(?) from 1983. In the old days when you tried to tell the year of a car, when each year there was a distinction in design, you looked closely at the taillight lens, and it would have a marking of the year of the car. Obviously no '83 Vettes for production, but the mold for the tail lens is stamped for 1983. So these markings are probably on all C-4's that use that same design. I think this goes thru the 1990 model. Check yours if you so desire.

 

[boomdriver]

Not trying to lure you in, just to give you info: I noticed when I looked closely at the taillight lens(red) on my '85 it has a coding that shows that it is molded(?) modeled(?) from 1983. In the old days when you tried to tell the year of a car, when each year there was a distinction in design, you looked closely at the taillight lens, and it would have a marking of the year of the car. Obviously no '83 Vettes for production, but the mold for the tail lens is stamped for 1983. So these markings are probably on all C-4's that use that same design. I think this goes thru the 1990 model. Check yours if you so desire.

Interesting but not surprizing.
As I was a young man it never occured to me that each model yr was actually designed and engineered as much as a decade prior to its debut. It takes time and a great deal of testing before a car can go into production. Knowing that the factory shuts down for a few months to "retool" for the new yrs production, it all adds up to remind us that when the 84 debuted as a revolutionary Corvette design, it was first drawn on paper many yrs prior. As early as the mid 70s when muscle all but died? GM was thinking THAT far ahead? A grand plan to revive American Muscle and do it thru a legend.
Parts mfgd, stockpiled, subassemblys made ready for production. Estimates of how many of what to make so the line would not stop until the next yrs production was started. The many many subcontractors that supplied lenses, bulbs, wire, raw aluminum...all lined up yrs before the final product rolled off the line and into a dealers show room.
If 83s existed as test cars (later destroyed) then they must have had pieces made several yrs prior. It takes more than a couple months to make a metal casting at a foundry and plastics take some time as well. I'd bet that there were parts of the fabled 83 that were made in the last days of the 70s....shows a great deal of forward thinking at Bowling Green. I know that I've read before that BG did not always consult or inform the "home office" of what they were up to...

Interesting factoid...Ruby,
Thanks!

 

[John Robinson]

Boomdriver is right about the lead time to bring a new design to the public. Having spent the last few years of my time with GM in the procurement of prototype parts. Things that take molding dies have a very long lead time and are very costly. As you build the prototype mule cars and are approaching a production date the vendors start submitting parts for final approval of there dies or tooling. Once those samples pass inspection then they were used in the final test cars build. In the case of the Corvette the original launch date was to be a 1983 model and since some of the parts were production approved when the car was pulled into launching as a 1984 the vendors were payed for the tooling and it was held until production started up. My guess is that when the dies for the taillight lens wore out they were then engraved with the model year that was in production then.

 

[Dukeallen]

Now I'll have to remember to check them on my '89 the next time I take it out, and see what they say.

 

[topless82vette]

my 90's are stamped 83 as well.