Sorry guys, I'm kinda ignorant to this. however my question is

I noticed the cars we love are F bodies, I noticed some otehrs are called H bodies. Does Ford make an F body?
Can someone explain how and why the term F body came into play.

Thanks in advance for your patience!

 

Different cars have a different designation. A B C ..so on.
The 4rth digit of the vin in your car should be an F.

I'm sure someone else could explain it better.

 

I dont got an "f" on my vin, ANY where. so i dont think thats true...

 

F just happened to be the letter GM chose for the Camaro/Firebird chassis when it was first being developed around 1964.

Chevelle/GTO/Gutless/Skylark were A-bodies in the begining but then put on a G-body in the late 70's.

Impala/Bonneville were B-bodies.

Corvette is a Y-body

Notforsale: Whoever told you that it came from a "F" in the VIN number is pretty clueless.

 

I have 2 F Bodys, 1 J Body, and 2 W Bodies.

It a way to describe a platform of car that includes more than 1 division (Pont Chevy) and from the same corporation (GM)

The driveline components are for the most part interchanagble.

 

Firebreed I was not talking about your car I was refering to jamesssr.
I think its 84 or 85 and up only. The F body name did not come from the vin but GM started using it in the vin.

Just looked at a bunch of 3rd and 4rth gen vin's and all have F's
as the 4rth digit.

 

The 4th digit of my T/A VIN is a "W".

 

The fourth digit isn't an F until 1987.

 

thats not true, i got an 86 and the 4th letter is an F

 

Thanks for clearing it up Apeiron.

 

i misread that for a second.. i thought u said u had 2 f-bodies.. one of them was a J body and one was a W body... (just read it fast and wasnt thinking) I was gonna be like.. u smokin crack today or what? lol

Yah, Fbody, just the type of chassis.. 67-02 camaro and firebirds are all Fbodies, even tho their design has changed some over the years...

 

Heres a quote from Scott Settlemire from GM

 

I'll bet thats the 5th, not 4th.

Looks like they may have changed it in 1985.

 

1985 - 2002 the 4th digit indicates the (car line), also called "body type" this is "F" in our case. Before that it was an assumed designation that was not used. Much like the Mustang is referred to be built on the "Fox" Platform.

When they went to the 17 number VIN numbering system in 1981 the numbers were ment for insurance purposes, and the information was not as useful as they probably hoped. All of our 82-92 cars start the same way 1G. 1 = US and G = GM the third designation is 1 = Chevy, 2 = Pontiac, 3 = Olds 4 = Buick 6 = Cadillac etc. But the 4th didget from 81-84 was the restraint system (thus where the insurance company comes into play). A = Manual belts, B = Automatic belts and C = Automatic belts (inflatable restraint). The carline & series was grouped into ONE letter IE S = Firebird, P = Camaro SC or Z28, etc. The body type for the cars was 87 = 2 door coupe, the 8th thru the 17th didgets in the VIN did not change their designation however.

In 1985 the 4th didget changed. The 4th didget which was the restraint system became the "Car Line" or Body type, thus "F" was introduced.

In 1987 the 7th and 8th didgest changed to what they are currently using. Where they were using 2 didgets to determine the body type, IE coupe/Convertable etc, the 7th didget became the body type IE 1 = 2 door coupe/sedan, 2= 2 door hatchback, 3 = 2 door convertable, 4 = 2 door station wagon, 5 = 4 door sedan, 6 = 4 door hatch back, 7 and/or 8 = 4 door station wagon etc...

Although the "G" body was the Monte-Carlo/Regal of the 80's my 95 Riv is also a "G" body. The letters sometimes change, especially when they changed the configuration from RWD to FWD as in the case of the Regal/Monte/Cutlass/Grand Prix went from a "G" in 1987 to a "W" in 1988 to current.

I hope that muddied the waters for you.

John

 

I believe that it is called an F-body car because the early cars had a metal tag riveted to the firewall(?), saying Body by Fischer. This is from my book of Firebird ID numbers (1967 -1993)

 

My dads 32 Chevy has a metal tag that says "Body by Fisher" on it, too. So do Cavaliers and a lot of other GM vehicles.

 

Almost every older GM car has the "Body by Fisher" slogan on it somewhere.

 

I think what he is saying is, it was mounted on the firewall so its

F (irewall) body. Get it. Body by fisher mounted on the F irewall.

F-Body, or Body by F isher.

But that wouldnt make sense??

Anyway, it was refered to the body line.

Camaros and Firebirds are F-bodies, Just what GM choose.

 

Turn your car upside down, the shape of the frame should be shaped like the letter your car is designated to.

NOTE: This comment was merely provided as a joke and I am not repsonsible for any belief in its credibility

 

Funny, turned mine upside down and it said "MATCHBOX"

 

Ford does not to the best of my knowledge. I think they have something called the Fox Body though, which is what the mustang is? Um, i'm not a Ford guy...

 

The fox body Mustangs went off the market in 93 they still use the platform until 2004 & currently using a new platform for the Mustang.

There is no Guessing the F body is just a letter GM used for the body of the car.

 

I thought I heard that the Fox platform was used for something like 30 years I know from 79-04 used the same platform, but apparently so did the Mustang II platform from the mid 70's used something similar.

I thought 11 years was a long time for our cars 82-92

John

 

I guess you were right there Okfoz
I got this off of a ford Site
Heres something more on the rustangs.
Ford Mustang: The redesigned 2005 Mustang coupe will go on sale this fall on the new D2C platform. It replaces the Fox platform, which dates to 1978. Ford began building the 2005 Mustang in September at the Ford-Mazda joint-venture plant in Flat Rock, Mich.

The coupe debuts first, followed by a convertible in early 2005. An SVT Cobra version is planned for the 2006 model year.