VIN Decoder

Type the number and see what the manufacturer recorded when the car was built. If it’s shorter than seventeen characters your car is older than the standard — keep reading, because that case has better answers than most decoders will give you. Free, no account, and your VIN isn’t saved.

If your number is shorter than seventeen characters

Then there is no database to ask, and every decoder on the internet will tell you your VIN is invalid. It isn’t. VINs were only standardised at seventeen characters in 1981. Before that each manufacturer numbered cars their own way: an eleven-character number on a 1979 Honda, a thirteen-character number on a 1968 Ford and a nine-character stamping on a 1930 Ford are all correct, and none of them will decode.

Two dates changed where you look. From 1 January 1968, under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, every car sold in the United States had to carry a VIN visible through the windscreen — the “public VIN”, put there so a stranger could check a car against a stolen list. From 31 August 1969, cars also carried an FMVSS certification sticker in the door jamb showing the same number. Around the same period manufacturers began stamping the number into the frame or body more consistently: the hidden VIN, sometimes called the confidential or federal VIN.

Before 1968 there was no rule at all. The number could be on the firewall, a frame rail, the driver’s door post, or a plate riveted somewhere under the bonnet, and where it went depended on the manufacturer and the year.

The plate that tells you more than the VIN does

On a pre-1981 car the serial number is usually the least informative thing stamped on it. The build plate is where the detail lives, and each manufacturer called theirs something different.

General Motors — the cowl tag

Fitted by Fisher Body to the cowl. It carries model year, model and body style, assembly plant, body sequence number, trim, body paint colour, build date and accessory codes. Worth knowing what it doesn’t say: on most plants’ tags the style number tells you nothing about whether the car left with a six or a V8. Fisher built the body from the firewall back and generally didn’t record what went in front of it.

Ford — the warranty plate

On the driver’s door jamb through 1969, and the driver’s door edge from 1970. It carries the VIN plus body, exterior paint, interior trim, rear axle ratio and transmission codes, and the DSO — the District Sales Office number showing which region ordered the car. On a 1960s Ford it’s the nearest thing to a build record still attached to the car.

Chrysler — the fender tag and the broadcast sheet

The fender tag carries the option and build codes. The broadcast sheet is the paper the factory actually built the car from, listing every option it was ordered with — and it turns up under seats and behind door panels decades later, or not at all.

What a VIN actually tells you

On a modern car, seventeen characters, and every one of them means something. The first three identify the manufacturer and where the car was built. The next five describe the model, body and engine. The ninth is a check digit — arithmetic on the other sixteen, there so a transposed character can be caught. The tenth is the model year, the eleventh is the assembly plant, and the last six are the serial number: that car, in the order it came down the line.

It is a complete description of a car on the day it was finished, and it stops there. A decode will tell you a Mustang left Dearborn with a 5.0 and a five-speed. It will not tell you that it sat under a tarp for eleven years, that the second owner put the bumper into a snowbank, or that the man who rebuilt the carburettor wrote the date on the inside of the air cleaner in pencil.

That is the part that gets lost, and it is the only part that can’t be looked up. It’s what a page on this site is for.

Common questions

Where is the VIN on my car?

From 1 January 1968 every car sold in the United States had to carry a VIN visible through the windscreen on the driver’s side of the dashboard — that requirement came from the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, and it is why the number is where you expect it on anything from 1968 on. Cars built after 31 August 1969 also carry an FMVSS certification sticker in the door jamb showing the same number. Before 1968 there was no single rule: look on the firewall, the frame rail, the driver’s door post, or a plate riveted under the bonnet. It is also on your title, your registration and your insurance documents.

Why does my VIN only have 11 characters?

Because it predates the standard. VINs were only fixed at 17 characters in 1981; before that every manufacturer numbered cars their own way, and the numbers were shorter and carried different information. An 11-character number on a 1979 Honda, a 13-character number on a 1968 Ford and a 9-character stamping on a 1930 Ford are all perfectly valid — there is simply no single public database to decode them against, which is why the NHTSA tool returns nothing.

My VIN won’t decode. Does that mean it’s fake?

Almost certainly not. NHTSA’s database only covers 17-character VINs, and its coverage is best for cars sold in the United States from 1981 onward. A number that fails to decode is usually pre-1981, an import, a kit car or a low-volume build. The number itself is fine — the database just doesn’t reach it.

What is a cowl tag or trim tag?

On GM cars it is the small plate Fisher Body attached to the cowl, and for a pre-1981 car it carries more than the VIN does: model year, model and body style, assembly plant, body sequence number, trim, body paint colour, build date and accessory codes. One important limit — the style number on most plants’ tags says nothing about whether the car was built with a six or a V8. Fisher Body built the body from the firewall back and generally did not record what engine went in front of it.

What is a Ford warranty plate?

A metal tag Ford fixed to the driver’s door jamb through 1969, and to the driver’s door edge from 1970. It carries the VIN plus the body code, exterior paint code, interior trim code, rear axle ratio code, transmission code, and the DSO — the District Sales Office number showing which region originally ordered the car. On a 1960s Ford it is the closest thing to a build record you will find on the car itself.

What is a fender tag or a broadcast sheet?

Chrysler’s equivalents. The fender tag carries the option and build codes; the broadcast sheet — the paper the factory used to build the car, often found under a seat or behind a door panel — lists every option it was built with. The broadcast sheet is the more complete of the two, and the more likely to be missing.

Is my VIN safe to type in here?

It goes to NHTSA and nowhere else. It is not written to this site’s database, not put in the address bar, and not recorded against you. A VIN is not secret — it is visible through the windscreen of every parked car — but it does identify one specific vehicle, so it is not ours to keep.

What can a VIN not tell you?

Almost everything that matters. It carries what the factory built and nothing after: no mileage, no accidents, no owners, no restoration, no engine swap, no story. A decode is the first line of a car’s record, not the record.

Where this came from

This is a site about knowing where a fact came from, so the same applies to the page itself. Decoding is provided by the NHTSA vPIC database, a free public service of the U.S. Department of Transportation, with best coverage for cars sold in the United States from 1981 onward.

Build plate details vary by model year and assembly plant, sometimes considerably. If your car’s paperwork disagrees with the summary above, the paperwork is the record — and it’s worth writing down before it goes missing.