'51 Serial Number

Unknown

I just registered my '51 C8 Coupe with the stepdown 8 registry. I hadn't taken a look at the serial number since I bought the car in July from a guy in Wyoming. The model number is 8A but the serial number is 100427. This would, I believe, be a very early production car. I thought that the serial numbers started with 101???

Park_W

Yours is actually a pretty late car, roughly 80% of the way through. Numbers started with 1001. Last one was 132,028, so there were 131,028 '51 models built (all series). Yours would have been the 99,427th one.

hudsontech

Actually, Park, 1951 serial numbers started with 101. (Sorry 'bout that!)



No. 100427 came off the line sometime in April 1951 (100192-111644) and would have been the 100,327 car off the line.



Last serial number in 1951 was 132,915 in October 1951.



Serial numbers were assisgned as the cars came off the line, regardles of series or body style. Thus S/N 101 could have been a Series 4A Pacemaker, 102 a Series 6A Commodore, and so on.



Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

HudsonTech

Memphis, TN

Park_W

Well, Alex, I should have trusted my memory (such as it is) a little more. I thought I recalled they started with 101, but when I looked it up in the "Standard Catalog of American Cars," it showed the start with 1001.

hudsontech

Park W wrote:

Well, Alex, I should have trusted my memory (such as it is) a little more. I thought I recalled they started with 101, but when I looked it up in the "Standard Catalog of American Cars," it showed the start with 1001.

At least the "Standard Catalog of American Cars" got the production figures right.



Leaves me wondering, tho, where they came up with the "approximately" figures on the Hollywood and convertible bodies.



Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

Memphis, TN

RL Chilton

hudsontech wrote:

At least the "Standard Catalog of American Cars" got the production figures right.



Leaves me wondering, tho, where they came up with the "approximately" figures on the Hollywood and convertible bodies.



Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

Memphis, TN

I have wondered that very thing, because the Hudson gurus have always told me that that information was lost in the merger. My best guess has been that they did an "approximate" strictly based on a percentage of overall production, nothing more. It might be the educated guess that is as close as we'll get.