Sill plate confusion

Hello.That's odd.The one's in the first picture are correct for a convertible. The one's in the second picture are for a coupe/fastback.The inner rockers and the floor pans on a convertible are different from a coupe.I think that I would start from square #1 on this one.Check the 3rd and 4th digits of the vin.They should be 08, not 07. Sometimes people chop the roof off of a coupe and turn it into a convertible and 40 years is a long time.Who could really say what all might have happened to your car over all those years.If the vin is ok, it is possible that someone replaced the entire undercarriage of your car with that of a coupe.From firewall to gas tank and rocker molding to rocker molding they measure the same and that isn't nearly as difficult to do as is it might sound.Here are some pictures.The first is a coupe. The next one is my car, a 64 1/2 convertible with original floors and rockers.Excuse the less than perfect appearance.It's also original paint, carpet,seats and scuff plates.

Hi again. That's a coupe floor and inner rocker. The vin is stamped in three places.The only visible without removing a fender is on the front D/S inner fender apron.If you pop the hood and look at lip of the fender, where the six bolts are holding the fender to the car, you will see a little cutout, about four inches long.The vin should be stamped there.I'm assuming that this one is missing or you would have noticed it at some point.If you look on that same lip about 18 inches closer to the windshield,near the hood hinge,you will see a date code stamped on the inner fender.Underneath the lip of fender you will see the vin stamped, and in that same area over on the P/S, but you have to get the fender out of the way to see it.I'll snatch the back seat out of mine in morning and take some pictures of that area for you.Yes, the windshields are different in the convertibles.I'll also go ahead and measure a bunch of stuff.As far as the structural integrity goes, that would depend on how well the job was done.I'd have to look at the car before I could say any more about that.With the work that I see you doing to the car, you can look at it just as effectively as anyone else could as far as strength and allignment go.Hope that helps.

Hi again.I suppose I could save you a little bit of emotional wear and tear.The vin stampings and windshield on your car are probably ok.What has obviously happened here is that someone cut the floor and rockers out of a coupe in one piece and put it in your car, probably as a rust repair.If you'll look in that last picture that you posted you'll see a weld line going along the firewall and continuing across the area covered by the kick panel.You can't see the P/S in the picture, but I'm sure that this line goes across there also.You will also see a pretty ugly seam going across the area covered by the back seat.Any further back and it would have gone into the top well area, causing the guy more problems than it would have solved.This leaves you basically two ways that you could gne would be to remove all of that stuff and go back with correct, which would not be cheap, or two, get coupe carpet, scuff plates and kick panels and go with what you've got there.Which one to choose would depend on what your intentions for the car are.If you want a show car, go with option one.If you want a pretty car to ride around in on nice week-ends with your wife/girlfriend,whichever your case might be, for fun cruises,dates and such then go with option two.There really aren't very many of us that would notice that you have the wrong scuff plates,carpet and kick panels in your car and then deduce how that came to be, so if you don't tell her, she'll probably never figure it out for herself.

Hi again. Here's what that rear area is supposed to look like from both sides.Hope this helps.

And more.

Still more.

And still more.

You might want to just snag all of those and save them on your hard drive.That way you can enlarge them to look at something a little more closely.But, that should give you an idea of what that area is supposed to look like.BTW,there are a couple of spots in those pictures that look like surface rust.That's just dirt.There isn't a speck of rust anywhere on my car.You might also notice that optional Rotunda 10-disc CD changer in the trunk.Very rare.