1967 Chevrolet Bel-Air Wagon - Matching Number, California Car - $12995 (Seattle, WA

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/ctd/4194283224.html

 

The seller is pretty proud of this, for the money. As it sits, and even with it being a 396 car, it's a $4,000 car, in its current shape, in my mind. Look at that interior! This is filthy, to boot. He's dreaming at $13K.

 

No way is that car worth anywhere near $12995. There's numerous trim pieces missing and the interior is totally shot. Heaven only knows what the back seat looks like because the guy didn't even include a picture of it. He's dreaming or on drugs.

 

Wow, I should be able to get $25K for mine. LOL!

Maybe if this were a nice Caprice or maybe even an Impala wagon, it may be worth that, but no way is a rough, plain-Jane Bel-Air wagon worth anywhere near that.

 

Can this car even be a "numbers matching" car by definition? From what I've read on a few Chevy sites, Chevy, like Olds, didn't begin stamping a derivative of the VIN on the engine until the 1968 model year. This is the only way an engine can be "matched" to a car. So prior to '68, there is no such thing as a "numbers matching" Olds or Chevy.

All you can do from what's stamped on the engine is tell what kind of engine it is and what year it was made. So you can determine if the engine in the car is correct for that year, but not if it's the engine that actually came with the car from the factory.

 

On 1967 and earlier cars, all you go by date codes and NOT the VIN on the block and trans; which came about with the 1968MY. You look at the build date of the car, and compare the date codes stamped on the various components (block, trans case, carb(s), heads, plug wires; damn near everything!) to ensure that ALL are before that scheduled build date. So, yes there IS such a thing as "numbers-matching" on pre-1968 US cars (this applies to ALL US manufacturers, not just GM).

 

I disagree. All you can verify is that the engine, etc. are correct for the time period. As you just said, you look and make sure that the date of assembly of the engine and other components are earlier than the date the car itself was assembled. If this is true, then, yes, it's very likely that the engine, etc. are original. But it's not proof that, for example, the actual engine in the car is the one that was installed at the factory. An engine with a similarly-correct date code could have been swapped in a month after the car was sold and you would never know. Or a date-correct engine could have been swapped in at any time since then.

Numbers-matching means numbers matching. That means that a number on the engine matches a number on the car, and the number is not a date (because many engines could have been built on the same date or same week or whatever), but a serial number or something similar and unique to that particular car.

 

Prior to '68, and I'm not sure exactly what year it started but, Chevy stamped partial VINs on the higher horsepower engines.....275/300 hp or larger which also means 327 cu in or larger. My '66 Impala with a 327/275 and my '64 Impala with 327/300 both have partial VINs stamped on the left of the stamped engine number.

 

Cool. That's makes those cars matching-numbers.