VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 31' 4dr Deluxe?

Hello All,
I'm new here and joined because I am buying a 31' 4dr. I restored a 23' T years ago and recently restored a 83' Chevy Blazer. I friend told me about a widow who was looking to sell her deceased husband's last project. Here is the car in a nutshell. Car is disassembled. Chassis is restored including mtr and trans. Doors, hood, fenders, rad apron, and wheels painted. It is dual side mounted, cowl lights, radio, and trunk. Body is rust free in either bare metal or primer with one small dent needing repair. All wood is perfect, either original or replaced by PO. He was a professional carpenter and it shows. Many parts are original and in excellent condition and also many new parts including full interior in boxes, roofing material, door handles, hub caps, 6 tires, and the list goes on. Car is complete and comes with extras like a pair of axles. Here is the dilemma. The PO took off the data plate to sand the firewall and now it can't be found. He owned the car for over 20 yrs not ever titling the car. I need to get a data plate from some other donor vehicle. A question I have is the motor serial number on the side of the block supposed to match the of the car on the data plate? The PO painted the parts what I believe to be what was on the original data plate as he had the numbers written down. It's painted Coffee cream, Fawn, w/Swamp holly orange wheels. Unfortunately he didn't have the serial written down. What he did have is a bill of sale from another man who is also deceased that listed the serial # as 31559 which of course is not the serial but the model number. I've offered a low amount because I'm buying the car as a "parts car only" not knowing if I will be able to title it. Any advice or an idea where I might look for a data plate I could use would be highly appreciated. This car is way too nice to part out and deserves to be back on the road.

at the filling station:

https://www.parts123.com/parts123/yb.dll?parta~dyndetail~Z5Z5Z50000014a~Z5Z5Z5AAAFE~P21.00~~~~S45F0Q7KUG69231193514x~Z5Z5Z5~Z5Z5Z50000014x

I've also seen where you can buy a new plate with your number put on it.

My car is registered to the body no on the firewall plate. different number than the car serial number on the floor in front of the front passenger sear under the mat look on the rail.

And check with your dmv about registering a car that hasn't registered for that long.

Hi Jim,
Thanks for your reply. MA is very difficult to get a title in. I was told I need a serial number and that is my issue. That is why I am asking about the serial on the engine block. The number is 28843xx. To me that's too many #'s but I don't know.

The engine serial number in 1931 was a seven digit number and the engine serial number did not match the car serial number since the car serial number was a totally different number.

Thanks, that is a answer to one of my questions. I now need to find a donor plate to get a number to title this car.

Good luck!

Hello Chistech,
Now if the 31 was being worked on and as nice as stated, the owner was most likely going to title/register it sometime in the future. It is unlikely to go to all the time, effort and expense to keep or sell an untitled car, but you never know. The cowl plate and the serial number plate are two seperate plates. You can learn all about the 31 on Bill Barker's web site: '31chevrolet.com'. The serial number plate is what you want for easy registration. Location of plate should be: outboard/right of front passenger seat, under mat/carpet, tacked to floor, inboard of metal floor sill. If it is missing, it could/might be with the cowl plate, or is lost to time. If the owner does have them, than, where might they be? If it were me, I'd have them with the papers, keys and books for the car. Maybe in the tool storage box in the floor of the car or in a drawer in the work bench or in the rollaway toolbox, who knows. Searching the workshop may be helpful too.

Found these numbers on some papers this morning. Do these numbers sound right?
2AE1800
31569
No T800

The PO's widow gave me the name of her husband's friend who helped occasionally on the car. He told me he knows he removed the cowl plate to strip the paint off. We've been unable to locate the plate in all the boxes. The PO has everything labeled pretty good and nothing is noted on a box about the cowl plate. I did see a letter to a vendor about purchasing a new body plate for the interior of the car so I assume that one is either missing or in bad shape. We can find all his correspondence, tech papers, receipts, and books/manuals but no plates unfortunately. My brother in law called me today to tell me his uncle, a long time collector of antique cars, has a rotted out 31 4dr sitting in his yard. I will go and see him and take a look. Turns out this car is less than 5 miles from my house. If you see my earlier post I did find those numbers. What is the difference between a standard sedan and a sedan special?

2AE1800 = This is the serial number of the car. "2" means that the car was made in the Tarrytown, New York factory. "AE" is the series (1931), and 1800 is the production run of the car in that factory. Since the serial numbers started at 1001 your car was the 800th car made in the Tarrytown factory in 1931.

31569 = 1931 Special Sedan

No T800 = "T" is for Tarrytown, New York and "800" indicates that your car was the 800th Special Sedan made in the Tarrytown factory in 1931.

Hello Chistech,
I do not believe that the word DELUXE was used for any of the 31 model vehicles. STANDARD and SPECIAL appear to be the discriptions used. I have a 31 Standard Coach, (although I only call it a Coach). My guess would be that you could easily pick out any STANDARD by it's rear mount spare wheel and tire. SPECIALS have sidemounted spares and cowl lights from the factory. If I'm wrong, I WILL be set straight. Dealer installed accessories are add-ons after the factory's baseline STANDARD or SPECIAL model configurations.

Thank you for that information. With this possibly she can give me a bill of sale with that information on it seeing since it 's in his paperwork. Hopefully I can find the plates and apply for a title.

Thank you, I realized I used the term "deluxe" in error. I am a newbie to this era of Chevy and it shows. Fortunately the more I look at papers the more I'm finding and learning on the car.

Sorry Harry, gotta fix this for a newby!. In the USA, Chevrolet made at the factory 20 different models, only one of which was called a "Special", i.e.
(1)Special Sedan, a 4 door with dual sidemounts,cowl lights etc, probably what you may have.

They made 5 models which were marketed just by their "name",
(2)a Coach,
(3)a 5 Passenger Coupe,
(4)a Phaeton,
(5)a Convertible Landau Phaeton, and
(6)a Convertible Cabriolet. These 5 base models were not referred to as Standard.

They made 4 models referred to as "Standard", the
(7)Roadster,
(8)3WCoupe,
(9)5WCoupe and
(10)Sedan.

They made 2 models with the sole descriptor "Sport", the
(11)Roadster and
(12)Coupe (each with a rumble seat instead of a trunk).

They made made 8 Deluxe models at the factory, which typically had Dual Sidemounts and Cowl lights, etc.
(13)3WCoupe,
(14)5W Coupe
(15)5 passenger Coupe,
(16)Sport Coupe,
(17)Convertible Landau Phaeton,
(18)Convertible Cabriolet,
(19)Sport Roadster,and
(20)Coach

So these are what you could order from the factory. The Dealer could add various of the "deluxe" features to any other model, and the dealer/owner might then refer to it as a "Deluxe" even though technically it is not a Deluxe. For example Chevrolet did not make at the Factory a "Deluxe" Roadster (only the Deluxe Sport Roadster). But I bet there are many guys out there who have added sidemounts to the standard roadster (with a trunk) and call it a Deluxe Roadster. More power to them, that'll teach GM!

Now to make this more complicated: In Canada, I understand the term "Deluxe" was not used. In Canada, just to be different, we referred to all the Dual sidemount models as "Specials". Go figure eh!.

There was deluxe models for 1931 in Canada , the Deluxe Sport Roadster, and also in Australia,the Deluxe Tourer (phaeton) and the Deluxe Roadster. All three models where factory six wheel equipped models.

There was also a Deluxe roadster in Canada in 1930.

Chistech,
I have two 31's, on both titles, the serial number on the block is the vehicle identification number on the title. I have a low mile 31 engine and was going to install it in a sedan delivery and realized the title identification on the block. For that reason, the original engine is now rebuilt. The sedan delivery has the floor plate and cowl tag none of those numbers appear on the title.
jk

Hello All,
Hush my mouth! I did say I would be corrected if I was wrong. Thanks for the 'DELUXE' tongue-lashing Gunsmoke and Jack39rdstr. See Chistech, we all learn quite alot about the vehicles on this site and forum.

Back then, some states used the engine serial number as the identification number on the title.

I absolutely agree, that's why I'm here. I don't know enough and anyone who thinks they don't learn something everyday is a fool. I used the term "deluxe" because this car is loaded and thought it was a term used for the Chevy's also but we're corrected, and rightfully so. (actually, looking at my thread title I covered myself, I put a ? after deluxe [b])
This car has the dual sidemounts, rear ash trays, foot rest,rope handles, dome light, cowl lights, dual tailights, eagle rad cap, rear trunk/rack, and of all things, a radio.
I didn't realize they made a radio in 31' but I read somewhere that it was an option in 31'. The radio I have is a rectangle box with two small knobs only about 3 1/2" apart, vol. and tuning on the front with a small window/dial inside between the knobs. Below this dial is a keyed lock. Why a keyed lock? I don't have any pictures yet as I haven't gone to pick it up but the exterior color is a reddish brown. It looks in damn near excellent condition. The also appears to be a really excellent condition speaker grill with a bowtie emblem on it which is the same color as the radio box. This grill resembles an old drive in speaker somewhat. I didn't see the speaker itself which I also understand the old speakers were 4ohms. The wiring connection on the radio resembles the old military pin connectors with a screw ring to secure. I haven't seen the pigtail for it yet but there is so much stuff yet to look through. Is anyone familiar with this radio?

Chevrolet did not offer a radio in 1931. The radio that you have in your car is a retro-fit from a later year.

The key lock on the radio was to prevent a child (or anyone else) from turning on the radio and running down the battery.

Thank you for that info. Any idea what year it would be from? I can't find any info or pictures of this radio on the web.

Post a photo of the radio and someone will tell you what year the radio is.

Can someone tell me how to post pictures. I have gone to FAQ and it mentions the "full reply" and then manager. I do not see any of that. I can only find reply at the bottom of each post which does not give me any attachment options.

To post photos you must do the following:

(From FAQ)

In order to add an image to your message or your signature, you must have the image already available on a web server and reachable by a URL. This can be an image on your own personal web page, for example. To place an image within a message, simply use the following Markup Tag:

http://www.url_to_image.com/image_name.gif

For example, if you have an image called cateye.gif and its available from your own website at http://www.mywebsite.com/pics, then you would use the following image markup:

http://www.mywebsite.com/pics/cateye.gif

You can do the same for your signature. Click the My Home option found on any page. Then, under the Main Configuration heading, click on "Personal Information, email, password...". Look for the Signature box, and enter your desired information, including any images/markup as above.

Note: To keep the forums loading quickly for everyone, it is recommended that you do not exceed 35k for your image size.

I have pictures in a folder in my computer not on a web page. I post on many other forums and there is usually a "manager" page. For some reason I'm confused on the design of this site. Sorry.