Hi,

I have just recently joined and wish to know whether my 16V is one of the first cars to arrive in the UK. I was told at the Brooklands meeting by a Club member that the chassis numbers started at 25000 for UK Right Hand Drive production, however, my chassis number is 24960!!!! Any ideas? Does the Club keep a list of Chassis Numbers and Registrations? Thanks.

Flavio.

Hello Iggy,

As mentioned at Brooklands unfortunatly we dont keep records of this however now you have mentioned it I will fire a few emails to Fiat and see if we can get this data.

Cheers!

Mario

Ciao Mario,

Many thanks for your prompt answer and good luck with Fiat. Let's hope they will kindly supply you with all the data they have as this will be very useful for the Club.

Thanks again!

Saluti.

Flavio.

Just a note Flavio, there were a number of pre-production cars registered on "M" plates as demonstrators for the dealerships and press.

Yours may be one of those.

On that topic, I meant a guy about 4/5 years ago who had a 16v coupe on an L plate (non private).

Would that have still been a 95' car?

Ross

L plate was for Aug 93 - Aug 94, so would probably have been a LHD import from first year of being on sale in Europe (not sold officially in UK until 1995 IIRC)

Hi Mario,

Interesting observation. I'm not sure of the history of ownership on my 16V but the car was first registered on 01.08.1995 and, hence, is on an "N" registration.

Ciao.

Flavio.

It was just after I got my coupe and didn't have the peace of mind to ask any questions.

That an my mate owning a 1.8 in this country. Although thinking back, it may have been LHD the 1.8....

Ross

Flavio,

Yours just predates mine - I've had it since 24/10/95 - with serial number 25016 and build number 62.

As far as I know there weren't any M-reg cars that weren't dealer cars; there was a very long delay between ordering and delivery (four months and two rude letters for me). Fiat were accepting orders - and had demonstrators of both the 16NA and 16VT - in June or July of 95, but they weren't offering any deliveries until after the registration change. That someone got one registered on the day the N-reg went live suggests a certain amount of influence at the dealers!

Neil

Hi Neil,

Wow! You must be the longest owner of a Coupe'in the UK and a rarity in that yours is a one owner car. Fantastic! How did you find out about the build number?

Flavio.

If you lift the carpet in the boot on the right hand side, there's a small strip of metal tacked onto the boot floor with the build number on it.

Neil - I collected my 16v today and checked the chassis number - it's just three earlier than yours - 25013, but it's on an 'M' plate with a registration date of late June 1995

Makes me wonder how the two cars can be so close in chassis number, but mine was registered several weeks before yours.

I would certainly be interested to find out if mine was a dealer car. There's nothing particularly special about it - it has cloth, no aircon and a sunroof.

So did mine when I got it! I regret in some ways changing the seats for leather; the cloth seats were more comfortable. Odd that the serial number is so different but mine was an early build, though a later delivery - I have wondered why.

Build number is inside the rear right cubby.

BTW - I lifted the boot carpet when I was checking for rust - didn't see anything tacked to the floor - is it on the boot floor or in the spare wheel well?

I'll check for the build number plate in the morning

BTW - I agree about the cloth seats - they are very comfortable, and of course, there's none of the sliding around you get with the leather - I'll definitely be keeping them, although I have a funny feeling, they aren't original - they look very much like the 20VT cloth seats I had in my first Coupe, and nothing like the seats Lee had in his 16v

It is inside the "cubby hole" on the righthand side of the boot.

The original 16v seats had a striped/rectangular pattern that is vertical with the seat, and the rear seat back will almost certainly have faded to pale green by now. The 20v seats have a diagonal pattern.

Checked - build number is 199 - how does that work? - lower chassis number but higher build number and earlier registration

I can also confirm that 20v seats are fitted

Looks like leather may be the only option to get back to standard then? - I guess good 16v seats are like the proverbial hen's teeth?

Only Fiat kinows, mine is 25404 with a build number of 239, built on 2nd June according to eper and registered at the end of August.

As for the seats, I preferred the cloth for comfort, but the rear seatbacks had faded badly and it was only a matter of time before they shredded. Leather it had to be.

I've never seen unfaded cloth seats. Joe gets cloth seats in and scraps them; no-one wants... might be worth a call when he's back from Spa.

Not much on Eper for mine - entered the chassis number and it merely confirms its a 16v and tells me the "vehicle number" is 24885 - doesn't give me a build date

Any ideas?

Edit - just entered Neil's chassis number and his build date is shown merely as "06", but mine is "05", suggesting May 1995 (I guess it must be if it was registered in late June)

My old 16vt was an M reg from May 95 and I passed it on to a forum member in the N/E. I'll try and contact him out of interest to ferret out the relevant numbers. It was a standard motor, no sunroof or a/c, cloth seats.

Well... I had a close look with a good light this morning. After having been told by CarlT years ago that the build was 62, I discovered a faint but definite '1' in the continental style. I now think the build number to be 000162.

Which is still before Nigel's 199 for his allegedly earlier build - very confusing.

Where about's is this build number? I had a look on the rear right, but couldn't see anything, bearing in mind I don't have a cubby hole as there is no trim in the boot

Draw a line back from the inside of the rear arch. It's inside that line, where the cubby should be. A metal strip about three inches by a half, or so.

Had a look earlier today for the build number on my vehicle which is 265 and my chassis number is 24960 so am confused as all the rest of you how earlier build numbers can have later chassis numbers?

Maybe Pininfarina can't count?

Nigel pointed out why I couldn't see the build number, it was because my external fuel swirl pot is sitting over the top of it

Doh! And I've seen that; I should have realised...

It could have been owned by Fiat UK like my early 20vt was. My original reg was P452 CCF and a lot of magazine articles and test reports were with cars with similar registrations. When the 16v/16vt was launched in the UK, the Fiat UK owned cars were M*** CLM with numbers around 700, IIRC. (Lots of other Puntos, Cinquecentos etc. also)

That reminded me, I once bought an ex-Fiat owned Uno back in 1986 - it was registered to Land and Air Ltd or something similar as the previous owner. They may have registered their coupes in the same name.

Mine was registered to Fiat UK Ltd, Bath Road, Slough

Chassis built on a separtae production line then stacked ready for build. Earlier chassis would be at the back of the pile as they take from the front of the pile to build up the car maybe? I am assuming in this that the build number was the build of the complete car and not the shell build?

Mine was given licence to thrill on 14-8-1995

I've managed to get some data from DVLA - mine is the 11th oldest 16v in the country. There are three equal-oldest 16v still on the road - all registered on 23 May 1995

I wonder if they are all registered M*** CLM ?

Ressurrecting an old thread - I met JosieGirl a couple of weeks ago, with her Ink Black 16v. It's on an 'N' plate, but when I checked the chassis number, its 250014 - just one higher than mine and two lower than Neil's.

Interestingly, on both mine and Josiegirl's cars, we couldn't get any code readers to communicate with the ABS ECU - and neither car has functioning ABS AND neither car shows an ABS warning light on startup. I've got a contact at Fiat technical who is going to arrange for a dealer to plug in the proper Fiat scanner to check for errors

Never tried the ABS ECU on mine. I can't recall if I get the warning light on startup; I'll have a look next time if I think on.

According to the owners handbook it may come on briefly when the ignition is switched on.

The wording is ambiguous whether it should normally do so. - Mine didn't when I tried it just now, but the ABS works fine.

My ABS light does come on when the ignition is turned on, then will go out after a second or 2.

mine was registered 05/07/1995....wonder where mine is ranked in relation to old age. Going to check in the boot tomorrow for numbers ! Seems like mine was a dealer car then .

Is yours an M-reg, then, Glenn? I vaguely recall that customer cars weren't delivered until N, but I tested a couple of Ms before I put my money down.

yeah, M233 EWV, don't know if its been owned by anyone on here in its past.

bumpity bump...

i have a question about chassis numbers albeit trivial.
why on the chassis plate are Coupes 'ZFA175000P00######' yet ePER will only accept 'ZFA175000000######' or is it just my 20v that is like that?

They're all the same. I don't know why the P is there, other than to avoid losing count of how many zeroes there are or to denote the start of the chassis number as opposed to chassis type?

It's not on other types of fiat's that I'm aware of. I initially thought it was a typo on mine but would seem not if they're all like that

Check the number etched into the windows; I have an idea that starts P0...

Unless it's an imported model in which case the glass wasn't etched.

It's stamped into one of the front suspension turrets too surely.

That's the full VIN, though, isn't it? I can't recall...

Joe, I'm not responsible for what those dastardly foreigners choose to write or otherwise on their windows! Perhaps the UK etching was to qualify as part of the Thatcham security rating?

Full VIN on turret and etched on front screen, chassis number only on other glass, IIRC

Indeed it is the full vin there Neil.

The top line of the etched glass on my car is what Fiat call the vehicle number. ie the part of the VIN number after the "P"
What the bottom line of 11 numbers is I don't know. It doesn't tie in with anything I can find.

I've copied the eper record for my car.

As you can see, what Fiat call the chassis number has the last 3 digits identical to those on the plate in the boot.

The production date is only shown for cars built in and after 2001, the month is shown however.

Obviously it shows the engine number it left the factory with.



edit,Following Dave G's point: the chassis number and what fiat call the Vehicle number are not identical. It is the vehicle number that is etched on my side glass.

Isn't the bottom line of 11 numbers the old phone number of FIAT aftercare service or similar, the same as on the (now faded?) sticker on the rear driver's side window?

On my early 20vt I'm pretty sure the chassis number is what is etched on all the glass, and my "boot build number" of 000010 bears no relationship to either chassis number (39874) or vehicle number (39930).

Fiat always used to refer to the vehicle number as "spares number". If you look at this example and enter the chassis number 33909 into ePer, it comes back with vehicle number 33782 the same as shown on the plate for the spares number.

The mysteries of Fiat Dave. You are correct.

I got that bit wrong, that number is derived from the vehicle number not the VIN.

Both the number stamped on the suspension turret, the number on the plate and the VIN as shown in the V5C are actually based on the chassis number 00025404

The plate in the boot 000239 does not appear to be documented anywhere.

The vehicle number, 00025564 is what shows on the plate as the spares number.

That 11 digit number etched on the glass could well be a phone number, 01818711333. Wasn't 0181 a London code back in the 1990's? I don't have even a faded sticker to compare it with.

Yep, outer London, along with 0171- inner London. They both took over from plain 01 which ran out of numbers.

025013 was made 19 of May of 1995

Good morning. I would to introduce myself. My name is Eugenio and Ia am fron Spain, then, I apologize if my english isn´t good.

I own from 2010 a 1995 rosso speed Coupé 2.0 16V, registered in 1996 (one year "sleeping"), (the first owner was a Fiat dealer) and this is my second 2.0 16V Coupé.

Thi is the first time I participate at this forum, but I took several years reading this very interesting forum. I would to say thanks to all you because this forum it have helped me a lot of times in these 6-7 years.


About the subject treated here, and for if it helps somebody...

I would say that, to enter data in the EPER isn't necessary to write full VIN number.
Simply, you must enter the code model Coupe (175) at first box, then in the next box, you have to input the last six digits of the chassis number. That is, if number is 58750, input 058750.

I would also like to point out that yes, it's possible to know the date of manufacture in any Coupé, but we must use a modern version of ePer, not the Fiatforum ePer online.

For this, we can use one of the online ePer that are available at Internet provided by clubs or shops from Italy, Poland or other countries. We will also have more updated prices because they are versions of the year 2013-2105.

As an example, I put now here in the bottom the screenshot with the information that we can see by entering the chassis number that has put before a forum member... 25013.

And it will appears to us that the production date was May 19, 1995.

About the letter P that appears after ZFA175, my theory is that P corresponds to the vehicles manufactured by Pininfarina, as other Fiat models don't have that P. Like the Coupé was made in the factory Pininfarina at Grugliasco, it have a P.

Finally, I would ask if exist any Coupé 1.8 running in UK. I know it wasn't imported to UK, so they would be LHD.

Regards

I forget put the screenshot, sorry

There is no relation to the number built to the body numbers . The body number is just a code to identify the body.

Mine is a 16VT registered on 1st august 1995on a N reg chassis number 25536 build number 263 .

I have a 16VT in broom yellow registered on 31st August 1995 Chassis number 25325 build number 185.