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According to the sticky by Icemark, my vin number shouldn’t be how it is. However being such an early build date for an 87 I was wondering if there was an exception to the rule. According to the post all early production 87’s were produced from 6/86 and have a vin ending in 500001- 555151 however mine is titled as an 87 and has a vin ending in 141729 which would make it fall into the 86 production year since those vin numbers were 100001- 200000 So I don’t know if this car is an oddball, or maybe it was a car delivered outside of the USA possibly? It also has a build date of 04/86....I was wondering if anyone has an idea of what the very first turbo 2 vin number is, and if anyone knows if there is an archive of where certain vin numbers were designated to be delivered to. Any information is greatly appreciated!
Your TII is a very early built example. The TII was introduced in March of 86 at the Chicago Auto Show and went on sale promptly thereafter as an 87 model.
Was there say a “range” of these early built cars say production number wise? (Example a certain amount between say vin number 125000-145000)? Does anyone know how many were produced before the normal production numbers? Just curious and trying to get an idea of how early this car actually was production number wise.
i ran your car through the Mazda system, its a 2 seat turbo. its a 1987 model year car, built 4/8/1986 and sold new 5/19/1986 at Jim Herrin Mazda in Findlay OH. the engine number is 13BE 51760
your car is pretty early, i show the first one is 140019, and it would have been built in late March of 1986. the first of the 5 series vins is 507702 and it was built 8/22/1986.
in the USA the turbo model was new for 1987, but it did show up early
i ran your car through the Mazda system, its a 2 seat turbo. its a 1987 model year car, built 4/8/1986 and sold new 5/19/1986 at Jim Herrin Mazda in Findlay OH. the engine number is 13BE 51760
your car is pretty early, i show the first one is 140019, and it would have been built in late March of 1986. the first of the 5 series vins is 507702 and it was built 8/22/1986.
in the USA the turbo model was new for 1987, but it did show up early
AWESOME!! Thank you very much! That is good to know for sure! And what is really impressive that means it has been local to this area it’s whole life, I literally live about 35 minutes from Findlay. So I’m extremely impressed with the condition of the car for being an Ohio car it’s entire life. That is amazing I appreciate it more than you know! That is great information!!
Also j9fd3s would you happen to know how many of those production numbers between 140019 and 141729 were Turbo II's?
not yet, its on the list, but its a slow process as each vin needs to be run individually. currently the 1995 Rx7 list is done, and i'm working on the 30th Anniversary miata, then the 1994 Rx7...
That is awesome that you are going through the efforts! Its that kind of nitty gritty time consuming work that I can appreciate for sure! Again I definitely appreciate all of the information!
in the meantime i can and do take requests. i get model, colors, build date, the date it was first sold, port of entry, and a few other things, its nice to have.
actually in the collector car world documentation is important, and unlike some cars, Mazda hasn't gone away and still has all the info on file, so why not use it?
in the meantime i can and do take requests. i get model, colors, build date, the date it was first sold, port of entry, and a few other things, its nice to have.
actually in the collector car world documentation is important, and unlike some cars, Mazda hasn't gone away and still has all the info on file, so why not use it?
Hot damn, didn't know you took requests. I may PM you a couple of VINs, but I don't have both of them on me at the moment.
Also j9fd3s would you happen to know how many of those production numbers between 140019 and 141729 were Turbo II's?
i had some spare time this morning, and so far its interesting.
in the H014xxxx vin series they, so far are all turbos. the really odd part is that they didn't use all the vins, for instance H0140051 and H0140056 are Rx7's. but 52-55 are not used. so far out of 5 potential vins, one is an Rx7 (they use the same series for the trucks, and 2017 Cx5/Cx9)
Wow that is really amazing! I imagine it probably being in part to do with anti theft and anti insurance scamming measures of the time. Makes sense in that aspect. That really is crazy that means this car is most likely within one of the first thousand possibly even five hundred TurboII’s for production in the United States! Keep up the amazing work! You’ll get there eventually lol, I am patient I’m just going to keep on plugging away at restoring it in the mean time lol
Wow that is really amazing! I imagine it probably being in part to do with anti theft and anti insurance scamming measures of the time. Makes sense in that aspect. That really is crazy that means this car is most likely within one of the first thousand possibly even five hundred TurboII’s for production in the United States! Keep up the amazing work! You’ll get there eventually lol, I am patient I’m just going to keep on plugging away at restoring it in the mean time lol
oh and the other weird thing is that the 1986 model year is 8/2//1985 to 6/30/1986, and these T2's actually overlap 3/31/1986-4/10/1986
funny that they would make two model years of the same car at once...
This just keeps getting more and more interesting the further you dig into it for sure! I’m definitely honored to own one that is in that weird era, now I’m really excited to see the actual number of the car in terms of the very first TII’s ever being produced.
oh and the other weird thing is that the 1986 model year is 8/2//1985 to 6/30/1986, and these T2's actually overlap 3/31/1986-4/10/1986
funny that they would make two model years of the same car at once...
Nowadays, it's common practice to test run building the next year's model mixed in with current production.
They only do a couple cars at a time so an issues doesn't bring the entire production line to a halt.
They may have also left gaps before or after the test cars explaining the skips in Vin #'s.
It's odd that they would sell these cars to customers, but maybe they have considered it a minor change since they already built LHD cars and JDM turbo cars.
Ahh yeah that makes very good sense. I wonder if it had something to do with emissions testing. Could have had that early run to see if they would be able to meet the standards with the turbo engine in the US. Either way it is very interesting for sure! This is all amazing history that I can appreciate and I am glad to know every bit I can!
in general the first ~10 or so cars are "test cars", they test the assembly line, possibly do emissions tests, crash tests, and then they go to magazines, and photoshoots and stuff like that.
with the 30th Anniversary Miata, the first customer car is #K0400011, i'm sure that the other 10 were built. there are also a couple floating around with no vin, as press cars.
actually the other confirmed sighting was a 1993 FD, P0200016, i saw the car myself, but its not on record as existing. it was locked in a cage at Mazda HQ.
i also know with the T2 that Mazda USA changed their mind on the option packages, and one of the magazine road tests from 1986 has a GT and not a Turbo II the only tangible result from this is that Power Steering was an option on the turbo
in general the first ~10 or so cars are "test cars", they test the assembly line, possibly do emissions tests, crash tests, and then they go to magazines, and photoshoots and stuff like that.
with the 30th Anniversary Miata, the first customer car is #K0400011, i'm sure that the other 10 were built. there are also a couple floating around with no vin, as press cars.
actually the other confirmed sighting was a 1993 FD, P0200016, i saw the car myself, but its not on record as existing. it was locked in a cage at Mazda HQ.
i also know with the T2 that Mazda USA changed their mind on the option packages, and one of the magazine road tests from 1986 has a GT and not a Turbo II the only tangible result from this is that Power Steering was an option on the turbo
Somewhat bringing an older thread back, as well as a question. We are here almost exactly a year to the date finally getting to work on this car again. It has since changed hands to a good friend of mine, however we are working on getting it back on the road here hopefully in a day or so. I saw a numbered sticker on top of the bellhousing that seems to be some sort of serial number or sequence number. I wasn’t sure if that had anything to do with the production number or not, however the number is 00014. I can’t remember for the life of me if my other TurboII had this same sticker and wasn’t sure if this has any relevance to the production number of the vehicle or not.
Somewhat bringing an older thread back, as well as a question. We are here almost exactly a year to the date finally getting to work on this car again. It has since changed hands to a good friend of mine, however we are working on getting it back on the road here hopefully in a day or so. I saw a numbered sticker on top of the bellhousing that seems to be some sort of serial number or sequence number. I wasn’t sure if that had anything to do with the production number or not, however the number is 00014. I can’t remember for the life of me if my other TurboII had this same sticker and wasn’t sure if this has any relevance to the production number of the vehicle or not.
i know the sticker you mean, but i have no idea what it means. its likely to be either a date, or some kind of build number. it doesn't show up anywhere in the data we have available. to figure it out we would need to go look at a bunch of them, and see if anything makes sense.
j9fd3s Hello, it has been a while and I was just curious as to if you have broken down the vin production numbers any more since the last time you posted here?
j9fd3s Hello, it has been a while and I was just curious as to if you have broken down the vin production numbers any more since the last time you posted here?
not really, no. except that maybe we have learned that the factory can be much more granular than we expect. we think all FC's are the same and they are, but the factory can differentiate between LHD and RHD and probably even different sub models.
