...maybe you can help me understand Von's vs. Vin's and how Plymouth give them to each car. :eusa_think:
Sorry, if this is Mopar 101.
Wow...Vins and Vons....big topic with lots of detail, nuances and unknowns.
Let's start at the basics and speaking in broad generalities. The Vehicle Order Number (or VON) really begins in '68. Prior to 68, it was known as the Sales Order Number (SO) and while conceptually the same, SO's are totally different.
Generally...the VON is a unique six character number assigned to a particular vehicle.
Let's focus on the most common VON.
Dealers are sent order blanks for each make and model line of car. If you walked into the dealership,sat down and ordered a car, the salesperson would have a pad of order blanks. That pad would have each order sheet sequentially numbered at the top. That's where the VON starts. It's the six digit number at the top of the order blank. That is the only number that can be associated with that specific car until the VIN is assigned. It is used to track orders submitted by the delarership, it is used at the factory as a way to track the car before the VIN is assigned. It is used for the factory to communicate back to the dealer if necessary (the dealer would not know the VIN number). It is used in conjunction with the VIN during the construction, billing and shipping of the car back to the dealter.
As the pads relate to make and model, a dealership could have a pad for Dodge Darts that start with 01XXXX, a pad for Dodge Chargers/Coronets that start 31XXXX and a pad for Polara/Moncos that starts with 29XXXX. A pad of Plymouth Belvedere based cars could start with 45XXXX. A pad for Imperials could start with 11XXXX.
All cars of that particular line, not individual models, would be on the pad. The first sheet, say 450001 would be a 4 door Satellite. Cars 450002 and 450003 ordered from that pad could be station wagons. Car 450004 could be a RR Coupe. Car 450005 could be a 2 door Satellite. Car 450006 could be a GTX convertible. All of these cars would have a common beginning number and all would be Plymouths. So VON series 45XXXX would all be Belvedere based cars but they could all be different models and body styles.
Research indicates that pads were possibly shipped and distributed to dealerships via the regional office meaning you will see clusters of certain cars VONs in a geographical area. The theory is that the regional dealership would recieve, say, 50 sequentially numbered pads of 50 orders a pad for Darts and hand them out to 50 dealerships in a geographic area. You would then have 250 VON numbers for Dodge Darts that would have been issued in a certain region of the country.
Orders would be recieved by the factory randomly so, using your example above, let's presume the missing VON numbers are on order sheets that have 1) been destroyed (sales man screws up the sheet and throws it away. Therefore the number on the sheet is not used) 2) not submitted for that particular day's production. The customer has a hold on that particular order for some reason so it would be sent to the factory 'out of sequence' 3) already submitted and processed. The missing VON numbers may have been included in the prior day's production.
With some exceptions (there's those pesky details and nuances) VONs are generally NOT seqential with VINs.
Exceptions could be:
A bulk order of fleet cars like cop cars. Say the State Highway Patrol submits an order for 10 new cars. Cop cars would recieve a specialty VON assigned at the plant. The chances are high the order would be processed all at once and all the VINs and VONs would be sequential.
Sales bank/promo cars cars. A guy sits down and orders 10 Darts from a pad in the plant office and submits the orders. These would probably be processed as a batch and assigned sequential VINs and VONs.
Package cars with specialty VONs. (6bbl cars, Hurst 300s, Daytonas, Superbirds, etc. That's another topic.)
Certain factors will override the VON on the pad and a new VON will be assigned by the factory. We'll cover that in Mopar VON's 202.
But for Mopar VON's 101, this pretty much is how it worked. It starts at the dealership with the order pad.
Hope this makes sense and helps.