Two Fender Tags - SPECIAL HANDLING CAR. Anyone seen this before?
- Thread starter Thorkild
- Start date
Here's one
Also found theses 2 posts by other people
From another site by Barry Washington...
The special handling fender tags are common to police cars, lots of folks have saved the tags from salvage yards over the years & added them to their cars.
I have never seen an original Hamtramck or LA built car with one of these tags, they noted their special handling cars on broadcast sheets instead.
The 'special handling' had to do with the vehicle build, it had nothing to do with being able to 'handle' corners at high speed.
The second one...
I found a stash of early 70's NYS Police Furys in a local salvage yard about 15 years ago and removed at least 8 or 9 of those tags along with a few Special Paint, Special Mask, Body In White. Very cool to collect and easy to remove
SOLD - A very rare “V” coded 1971 Cuda
Have decided to part with my 1971 V code cuda. Storage for my cars has become an issue. I have only owned this car for six months but previous owner had it 28 years. The car is a bench seat,armrest, column shift car which believe it or not was an add. Cuda’s base was bucket seats. The previous...
www.forebodiesonly.com
Also found theses 2 posts by other people
From another site by Barry Washington...
The special handling fender tags are common to police cars, lots of folks have saved the tags from salvage yards over the years & added them to their cars.
I have never seen an original Hamtramck or LA built car with one of these tags, they noted their special handling cars on broadcast sheets instead.
The 'special handling' had to do with the vehicle build, it had nothing to do with being able to 'handle' corners at high speed.
The second one...
I found a stash of early 70's NYS Police Furys in a local salvage yard about 15 years ago and removed at least 8 or 9 of those tags along with a few Special Paint, Special Mask, Body In White. Very cool to collect and easy to remove
Cuda Hunter
Well-Known Member
B and C body cars.
Never seen one on a factory E body
Never seen one on a factory E body
EV2RTSE
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Exactly right. As another example my brother's Challenger R/T has SPECIAL HANDLING CAR printed on the build sheet but only one fender tag with the codes on it, no extra SPECIAL HANDLING CAR tag.
Xcudame
Well-Known Member
Mostly it was your police cars that had "SPECIAL HANDLING CAR" tags to let the assemble line workers know there were extra/different options on them. It was common for different law enforcement agencies to order unique options for their vehicles.
Cuda Hunter
Well-Known Member
As I think about it, there is that one 1974 that has the "body in white" tag on it. This is the car that has the grid layout across the entire car. I am not positive it is actually factory but it did appear to be factory and claimed to be factory. It was for sale for quite some time. Hopefully someone saved that one car. There must be others.
I don't have pictures of that car unfortunately.
I don't have pictures of that car unfortunately.
Cuda Hunter
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PM27L0D233366
Cuda Hunter
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YM23T5C177004
The broadcast sheet on my '71 Hemi Challenger also has the " Special Handling Car " on it. Does anyone have more specific info on what that really means?
pschlosser
Well-Known Member
As others have said, Special Handling refers to the execution of assembly, not to the suspension, per se. When a vehicle requires a deviation in the normal flow through the assembly line, it was handled in a special way. This may be something added extra to the vehicle build, or something altered after it was completed on the line. It may include removing the vehicle from the assembly line for the special order item/request to be executed. It refers to any number of possible changes.
Thanks for the prompt reply. Could that occur if the vehicle was to have different option(s) added / substituted in lieu of what was on the build sheet
or fender tags ?
pschlosser
Well-Known Member
I don't think so. Let me clarify: Any option or change that could be documented on the build sheet, will be on the build sheet, and possibly executed on the assembly line without special handling.
The fender tag purportedly contains mostly the data/options the assembly workers needed to know about while the frame and body parts were being assembled and prior to paint. For example, they would need to know if the car had a 22-inch radiator, versus a 26-incher, because the sheet metal was different in the front of the car for the two sizes. Another example might be the type of hood, plain-Jane, rally or shaker. In 1971, this would include the type of fender, with or without gills.
The Special Handling body code plate gave the assembly line worker a heads up they will need to refer to another document to better understand the details. I presume the document would be the broadcast sheet, and here's why:
The broadcast sheet accompanies the vehicle through the assembly line. It has a Remarks section at the bottom. This is were some or all of the special handling instructions could fall. But I cannot say I've ever seen a special handling broadcast sheet, so this is a guess. Reviewing the broadcast sheet of a special handling car would resolve this, because if the remarks section is blank, then we'd know there had to be other documents.
The assembly line was streamlined as much as possible. It would be imprudent for a worker to have to stop, or leave the assembly line, to answer his questions about the special handling. If there were other documents, it seems likely they would have been found alongside the broadcast sheet within the car. And I've never heard about a document other than the broadcast sheet. For quality control purposes, they would want to keep all these together during the assembly process for as long as possible.
The reason I ask is I have a 71 Hemi Challenger w/ a T/A hood and the correct air cleaner assembly. That is; a T/A base plate and lid punched for 2 Carter 4 bbls instead of 3 x 2 bbl Holleys. The fender tags indicates a sport hood ( J54 ). The car was built in April of '71. Since it was late in the model year, supposedly, the factory would install a T/A hood if the car in question was ordered w/ a Shaker and they were out of Shakers at that moment.
Conversely, could the opposite be true; that the assembly line was out of sport hoods at the time a car ordered w/ a sport hood came by and a T/A
hood was used on the car?
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pschlosser
Well-Known Member
This is just an opinion:
My instinct is "no." That is too great a change, and too much a manufacturing cost, to be a simple and/or temporary substitution.
If the substitution were approved by the buyer (be it a dealer or special order by customer) then order would be changed to reflect this. There would have been no holdup during assembly. The change would appear on the broadcast sheet and fender tag.
If the change were temporary, that is, something to be resolved by the dealer, before the customer took delivery, then the assembly plant makes the change, so they can ship the car, complete the transaction, with a promise to provide the dealer the correct parts, at a not-too-distant time, later.
The substitution you describe, which is a T/A hood instead of the shaker, when they were out of shakers, seems to great an expense a substitution. The hinges would be impacted, too. And any temporary substitution would have been followed by a fix to resolve it before the customer took delivery.
You are then left with a substitution the customer decided he didn't want, and wanted to keep the T/A hood, when the shaker was ordered. Occam's razor suggests this is too complex and improbable a scenario to be true.
The genuine Hemi 'Cudas were said to come standard with a shaker hood. But the shaker hood on the Hemi Challengers was not standard. This would be the J54 code on a Challenger. Someone put a T/A hood on there. If it came with a T/A hood from the factory, I would expect to see the option code on the fender tag and broadcast sheet, presuming they would allow you to order it this way.
But I'm just guessing. How could I know? It's just an opinion.
Cuda Hunter
Well-Known Member
Cuda Hunter
Well-Known Member
Special handling cars are documented on B and C body cars as stated above.
If it were on an E body we need to see some documentation. Would love to see an E or an A with special handling tag. And a broadcast sheet that has special handling on the bottom print.
Does your car have a broadcast sheet?
Can you post the fender tag?
Is this your TX9 black JS challenger then?
And the parts on the car?
Any date codes on the parts in question?
If it were on an E body we need to see some documentation. Would love to see an E or an A with special handling tag. And a broadcast sheet that has special handling on the bottom print.
Does your car have a broadcast sheet?
Can you post the fender tag?
Is this your TX9 black JS challenger then?
And the parts on the car?
Any date codes on the parts in question?
pschlosser
Well-Known Member
Another point, if you go far back enough in time, like the mid-1970s and early 1980s, there were few reproduction parts, because there was little need or demand for them, when the genuine OEM parts were available at swap meets, and even the dealership.
If you're seeing genuine OEM parts, it's possible they were added/changed early in the car's life.
If you're seeing genuine OEM parts, it's possible they were added/changed early in the car's life.
The pics of the T/A Hemi aircleaner as well as the broadcast sheet (PDF attachment) are posted earlier in the response
to pschlosser. Please see the comment on the bottom of the build sheet.
It is my black JS Challenger, and the broadcast sheet posted above belongs to the car.
The parts on the car came with the car, and I'm the 2nd owner. I bought the car in 1981.
I will look for date codes on the parts....
Cuda Hunter
Well-Known Member
Thanks for pointing that out as I did not see the attachment.
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