One of the ways of identifying whether your Australian Falcon is genuine or not is by checking the Compliance Plate as shown on this page and marrying it to the VIN which was stamped on sheetmetal under the bonnet. This has become especially important with the rise in value of old Fords and GT’s in particular where the possibility of faking cars can occur. With the XA, XB and XC models, Ford had a policy of stamping the VIN on the top of the passenger side shock tower.

This is a photograph of an XA that we have seen earlier.

Showing the VIN stamped on the top of the suspension turret.

Here is another car.

If you study the pictures carefully, you will notice that there is a ‘problem’ with the stamping. What do you do with the hole ?

Quite where the half-covered hole in the suspension turrets of XA’s came from, I do not know. It wasn’t present in XW’s.

Or XY’s.

And it disappeared again in later - 1974 on - XB GT’s.

I would like to thank Richard in Australia for providing the following information and photos and bringing this to our attention.

“In 1972 for some reason, FORD had issues stamping the shocker tower with VINs. For starters, the XA was the only model were you can clearly see a hole between the folded metal that makes up the shocker tower. This lead to the inconsistency in stamping in 1972. In 1973 they got there act together and started stamping the JG33 after the hole, but in 1972 had made a few variations.”

This is a January, 1972 XA. Notice that the ‘M’ is stamped above the hole.

This is a July, 1972 XA which now splits the VIN after the ‘JG33’.

This September, 1972 XA splits the VIN differently.

By August, 1973, they seemed to have settled down to consistently stamping the number in its entirety after the hole. See also the picture at the top of the page.

As you may have realised by now, things sometimes were not too regulated with Australian Fords and, as further proof, here is an early XB GT.

Which still has ‘the hole’.

Or this XB GS.

And here is a November, 1973 XB with the hole.

So, it wasn’t an XA-only thing and it would be intriguing to find out when ‘the hole’ disappeared from the stampings and, why indeed, was it ever there ?

Consider this March, 1974, XB. The hole is present.

And this July, 1974, XB ? Hole has gone.

With the disappearance of ‘the hole’ you would have expected the stampings to have settled down.

Well, they did, but some variations of angles and styles still appeared.

Although a new hole appeared in XC’s.

It was in a different location.

Note, the above two cars are XC Cobras, numbers 253 and 194 respectively.

And would get covered if you fitted tower to scuttle braces.

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XW stampings

Earlier Falcons, for example this Phase1.5 XW GT, had their chassis number present in several locations, including one not used by the later XA-XC’s.

The compliance plate.

On early Falcons, that is, pre-January, 1971, there are actually two identification numbers, and both are shown on the compliance plate.

The number present on the top line of the plate was originally known as the body prefix and serial number. The ‘JG33LL’, as above, is the body prefix number and desigantes the country of origin, the plant, the model type and a two letter code for month and year of manufacture. The next section section with a five digit number is the serial number of the body.

This number is also stamped on the radiator crossmember on the passenger side.

What Ford called the VIN was a two letter, then four or five digit number, then a single letter code whihc was stamped on the passenger side suspension turret.

And on the engine block.

This stamping of the engine VIN in this location on the block is unique to very early - Phase1.5 - Clevelands.

The leading two letter code identified whether the car was manual or auto trans equipped. In this case the ‘GJ’ means auto. It would be ‘GL’ if it was a manual trans car.

After January, 1971, Ford rationalised their numberings sytem and used what had previously been the body prefix number and serial number as the VIN, and did away with the separate number, the coding not required because there were now individual boxes on the compliance plate to list engine and transmission type..

As a result, later engines had the full VIN stamping on the vertical side of the timing chain casting, below what is shown above.

Just above the fuel pump, seen on the right of this photo.

And here.

Another indication of where the VIN is stamped on the radiator cross member on early Falcons.

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