Door tag decoding – harder than I thought

I mentioned in my last post that I would be looking to add a 87-93 Mustang door tag decoder to complement the VIN decoder on the mobile side of this site. I have been researching the codes for 1987 to 1993 in an attempt to load them into a database to serve as a basis for the decoder. I have collected a lot of information over the years and thought this would be pretty easy. It turns out that not one of the sources I have is without errors. For my sources I have several books including the Fox Body Mustang Recognition Guide. I have a CD from Ford for the 1993 Model Year and I have a three part series on decoding from Mustang Monthly that they did in 1992.

There are enough discrepancies between these three that it is driving me crazy. I want to create a definitive list of what the codes were used by year. I don’t think this type of detail exists. The Mustang Monthly articles comes close to this but it is not 100% accurate. From searching the internet I have found examples of door tags that demonstrate to me that each of the sources are incorrect in some areas.

I have toyed with the idea of starting a Fox Body Mustang Door Tag project where I would ask owners of 87-93 Mustangs to send me a picture of their door tags. That way I could see exactly what codes were used. If there is enough interest I might do it.

For now, I will continue pouring over the sources I have to come up with my best guess. It will serve as the basis for my new decoder. I am also considering publishing it in its raw form where I would hope that people would review it and provide corrections.

Stay tuned…