Fb years of manufacture

[pauly]

Ok I need to ask a really stupid question.
My question is I thought fb's were made between jan 1960 and july 1961, if this is so then why would there be a 1959 FB wagon for sale at the moment ? Am I incorrect and did they make an fb special wagon in 1959 ?

[Joe_FBHolden]

FB was available around November 1959 but advertised sales begun in Jan 1960

[WayneXG95]

Yep

[pauly]

Too easy, thanks for that.
Im having a look at a wagon on the weekend and i thought i better ask the question here.

[Joe_FBHolden]

please explain??
By the way I thought we were talking about manufacturing, not sales records or proof of sale?

[Joe_FBHolden]

To clarify, available to order

[iso007]

Thanks sunny tim.
Good info and you just reminded me of watching my father and older Brothers look at marking on the glass to tell the true year model, when I was just a littlen'. Without going out to the garage right now,
Tell me, is there a dot above a
Certain letter which tells you the year model ( or glass
Manufacture date). ?
Ian

[Dr Terry]

What Tim has said is spot on.

GM-H had FB production scheduled for a Nov/Dec 1959 release, but the industrial action delayed their plans.

The first official news was the press release which goes out to the TV, radio & newspapers, to tell the public of the new model 'soon' to be released. The date of this release was 14 Jan 1960.

The dealerships usually had their windows masked up to hide the cars until the first date of retail sale. With the FB, due to the delay, this was the very next day, although with some model series this was a week or so later.

The dealers usually got to see the cars a few days before the press release was issued, but it's highly unlikely that any dealer had even sighted a car before Jan 1960. The internal 'grapevine' would've been very busy with snippets of news which was often not much more than rumour. They knew that a new model was due & many buyers in those days wanted to be the first in the street with a new model Holden, so dealers often took deposits on future orders, but these weren't sales, they didn't even know what the price structure was & this was held back until the press release date (14 Jan 1961).

So as Tim has already found, for a number of reasons the first official sale date could be no earlier than that.

Dr Terry

[rosco]

Typo in final date, Dr. Terry....

Great info - thanks folk who contributed.

I wonder if anyone has a December issue of Modern Motor or the other motoring mags at the time.
I expect that the tabloid motoring columns would not have had access to pix prior to 14th January, 1960 either.... what a scoop, if they did.

It is my understanding that the window glass marking for 1959 would have been a dot over the "T" in Armorplate - the "A" being for 1960.
As Tim points out, this is simply the date which the glass was manufactured... we use it as a rough guide for vehicle production year.
Of course - the front window is not what I would perceive as being any form of indication.. and, if all windows were replaced with some from a later year..... as mentioned, rough guide.

I have seen cars which must have been on the production line for two years.... with half of them in 1960 and the other half in 1962....
Body and subframe number combination are probably the most accurate... engine numbers should co-relate - there's data lists in this forum to verify that any "original" vehicle is in fact intact....

frats,
Rosco

[FJWALLY]

can someone show me where the data lists are - all the searches for body numbers and engine numbers just bring up chat but no documents

[WayneXG95]

What Tim says sounds more than resonable to me.