Mark II serial numbers

[Milsteads Garage]

We have breakdowns on the interior codes which is your 1B6M code. It is a little hard to find on here but 221-6 means the following: February 21st production date: 6 one off the line that day. From what I remember, car 3418 (we categorize and identify them by the last 4 of the vin) was the first 1957. So while yours is technically a 56, many states categorized the year of the car as the first year it was registered, not manufactured. There have been a few cases of owners reporting this over the years.

[Barry Wolk]

Pat, since we know 1248 is missing. Are there others? Do the invoices all exist? Can we conclude that the missing Invoices all have Introductory Unit designations. Can you provide me with a list of numbers to present?

[Pat Marshall]

Please see my 9/19 post in the INTRODUCTORY UNITS -

In it I reported the invoices missing from my invoice set:

Prototypes (3)
9500, 9501, 9502F
Two Car Pre-Pre-Production Special Run (1000 & 999) (1)
999
Pre-Production Cars (10)
975,976, 978-985
Regular Production Cars (206)
1001, 1003-1014, 1016-1272, 1274, 1280, 1297-1309
1331-1335, 1339-1341, 1347-1348, 1354, 1390, 1400,
1402, 1405, 1406, 1436, 1497, 1716, 1769, 1998.

Whether the missing invoices from my set are all IU's or just missing invoices, I can't 100% say. However, until proven otherwise, for purposes of writing car histories, I assume they are IU's.

Please clarify your request for "a list of numbers to present?"

I also came across this email from Axel Holm that I received years ago - “I discovered the Mark II invoices in 1967 when visiting in Dearborn, Michigan. They were on the floor in a box in an engineering office at the Lincoln assembly plant in Wixom, MI. I arranged to get copies, and then recorded the information.”

I don’t know if the missing ones were destroyed in the 1962 Ford Rotunda fire (some of the Ford Archives were lost) or what happened to them.