production date
 

My neighbor is fixing to get a Bonneville (prolly tomorrow)(I saw it, REALLY nice car). Thing is, the guy who has it doesn't know the year model. Well, Bob (my neighbor) told me today that the date inside the door jam is 9/91. I tried telling him, the car can't be a 91, it's a 92 bodystyle. Did they make cars in 9/91 and sell them as 92s?

its VERY common for cars to be built in the previous year and then label them as later year

The typical ruling is anything 1/2 way through the year is the next years model. This is key in doing some repairs where a part doesn't match up. Not usually a problem on B'ville though.

Matter of fact...some auto makers in recent years have released new model year cars as early as February of the previous year (i.e. 2007 MY car released Feb. of 2006).

My '97 was built 06/1996.

Cool. I knew they release stuff the year before, I just didn't know it they would have done it that early back then.

sometimes they skip a whole year all together. there is no 1983 corvette. they skipped ahead to '84 to bring out the C4.

For as long as I can remember (and I'm willing to bet I remember loner back than you do ;) ) the new models have always come out between August and October the year before. There's always the oddball special releases, of course (64 1/2 Mustang for example)

Moved to Gen Chat since it's not mechanically related.

it was actually a problem for me with my bonneville -- i went to the dealer to get a new lock key and the 92 key wouldn't work they had to use a 93 key, even though my car is a 92.

the 92 and the 93 key should been the same, the cut and the resistor have specific to the car, but there is no difference that i am aware of