I bought the following (barn fresh) 1949 Coronet the other day and plan on just driving it like it is. It has an older 1960's hotrod conversion with split manifold with dual exhaust and shackled rear end. Not sure if anything has been done inside the engine yet. Can anyone break down the vin number for me? 313706XX
The VIN's don't decipher like later cars. What it does tell me is that your car was built in Detroit. It is a Model D-30 which can be either the Coronet or Meadowbrook. The sequence for 1949 started with 31245001. So yours was somewhere around 125,000th D30 off the Detroit line. There were 172,329 made in Detroit that year, so yours was about 2/3 through the run.
Here is a link to start you out.
http://oldcarmanualproject.com/manuals/D.../index.htm The 2 best tools for your car is the shop manual and the passenger car parts list. Both are available as reprints or on CD.
When you have more questions let me know.
That flathead with split manifold will purr as nice as can be, I had splits on an early series 49 back in the day