1955 Data Plate has no sales area district

[amorrison124]

Hello all,
I recently acquired a 1955 with the data plate attached. I understand all coding for body color, trim, production # etc, but curious why there is no sales area district in the production code as I've seen elsewhere? Appears to have been the 143 unit shipped on December 24th but every other example I have seen had a sales district prefix to the unit #.

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[doug7740]

P5FH127907
40A T C 24M143

P = Engine Code - 292 Cubic Inch Displacement
5 = Model Year - 1955
F = Assembly Plant - Dearborn
H = Body Style - Thunderbird
127907 = Consecutive Unit Number of All Ford Cars Assembled

40A = Body Type (All 1955 & 1956 Ford Cars Were Coded 40A)
T = Body Color - Thunderbird Blue
C = Trim Color - Turquoise/White
24 = Day of the Month
M = Month - December
14 = Sales Area District – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
3 = The 3rd Thunderbird Shipped to the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania District for the 1955 Model Year

doug7740
1955 Thunderbird Blue

 

[amorrison124]

Thanks Doug. I had considered that 14 could be the sales district and 3 the unit shipped but understood that the sales area districts weren’t represented using numeric codes until the 1957 model year data plate and that all 55 and 56 models used the 2-letter alpha codes for the sales area district (e.g. DD for Detroit) ?
I did just find an article on decoding by David Tulowitzky that included the line “
Starting in mid-December 1954, the sales district codes were omitted for some unknown reason for a few data plates on each production day; but the numerical
sequence numbers continued without interruption.” Maybe mine fell in that category given the December production date.

 

[doug7740]

It's possible that's the reason your data plate has a numerical sequence number instead of an alpha code, I have seen both 14 and PI used for the Pittsburgh sales district office. My 1955 Thunderbird was made on the 20th day of December, and it has an alpha code for the sales district office.

doug7740
1955 Thunderbird Blue

 

[George Ford]

My 55 also has a mystery w/ the data plate 40 A R XB 25 h 938 there is no dealer code 9 or code 93. Also the 938th car shipped to ? seems reasonable for a build date of Aug 25

 

[doug7740]

As per the attached article it states that:

Starting in mid-December 1954, the sales codes were omitted for some unknown reason for a few data plates on each production day; but the numerical sequence numbers continued without interruption. This mixed format continued until early July at which time the sales districts were eliminated for the balance of the 1955 model year.

This must be the reason there is no sales district listed on your data plate.

doug7740
1955 Thunderbird Blue

 

[George Ford]

So since my 55 was built in August it would have no dist. code but the 938 shipped to the unknown dist.?

 

[Tom Alpers]

Maybe the factory was building some "on spec" and at the time they ran them down the assembly line they didn't know what district they would wind up shipping them to.