Muscle Car Basics:
‘63-‘67 Chevy II Cowl Tags
by Patrick Smith
How many times have you followed up a lead on a vintage Nova only to learn it was just a base coupe? Over the years, I’ve heard all kinds of wild ideas on authenticating GM muscle cars. Some of the information is very misleading and can only lead to grief if you base a purchase on those dubious sources. When it comes to muscle car documentation, some kinds are strongly preferred over others. A build sheet is considered the best kind. The only rival it has is actual dealership paperwork. Both are tough to obtain due to the passage of time.
Morever, it must be remembered that not every car had a build sheet when it left the factory. The assembly crew were diligent about cleaning up the interior after final check off and loose paperwork like build sheets often were discarded. If an interior was renovated, there’s a strong possibility of losing a build sheet. No one cared back then about a piece of cruddy paper with computer printouts. You can, however, check another area of documentation, your cowl tag.
The cowl tag was created by Fisher Body Operations as a way of marking certain options to be installed on cars for assembly. Since Fisher dealt with bodies instead of complete cars with upholstery, drive trains, tires and paint, they didn’t use complete lists of options for their tags.
AMERICAN COWL TAGS
The top of the tag will state Body By Fisher on US built GM cars. Under the first line will be ‘ST’ and ‘BDY’ on the left side of tag while the right side will have ‘TR’ and ‘PNT’. (figure A) These are short hand for Style, Body, Trim and Paint respectively. The codes after these titles are the actual codes for your particular car. For ‘STYLE’ what follows is model year, expressed in two digits and body code expressed in two digits.
The BODY code is on the right hand side of the tag and it has a two letter code for assembly plant followed by a six digit sequence number.
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