So far, just about everyone that has seen my "new" '82 310 MH says one of two things: "I've never seen one of those." or "how many of those did they make?"
It was the second question, and my passion as a Mopar collector... we're into prod. #'s, that untimately led me to this older post, and also to Steven's very handy AS VIN translator. Of course, I first tried to put in the GM VIN (on my title) and that doesn't work. So I called AS and got my AS VIN = 1A9AGAR22CJ009926
As Steven has noted with his MH, the codes aren't completely reliable, e.g. I don't have a rear kitchen. But everything else came back correct.
So, how many of these older MH did AS make? I admit I haven't read this entire thread, so perhaps this is old news, but according to Dixie Danzler(sp), (you can't make up a name like that!) who is an accountant I spoke with at AS corporate, the AS MH's were sequentially numbered beginning with the 1980 model year. This is interesting since, I assume, AS MH production started in '74?... but notice that most the numbers from '79 differ by about 9000 from those manufactured after '79 model year.
Unfortunately, Dixie wasn't able to give me the beginning number for the '80 and up MH's, but indicated it wasn't 0001. She suggested it might have been 9000... or higher, I'm still working on tracking down this piece of info.
Another reason for calling AS was to find out when my MH was made, since the aluminum skins were changed in mid-1982. She told me mine was made May '82, late in the production year, so I'm betting it's not alclad...
My sequential # is 9926. So, at a maximum, there may be 9926 MH units made up to that point in two years, but as I mentioned above I, and Dixie, think it's lower than that.
So here's the real conundrum. I looked at the list of serial numbers listed in this thread (copied those bordering mine below) and figured mine should fall after Daddy4Bob's 280.... but instead it comes after silver billet's '83 310
695 - '81 Excella 28' MH (jpurdy)
991 - '82 280 Classic (ALANSD)
9727 - '82 280 on eBay (Not Verified)
9819 - '82 280 MH (Daddy4Bob)
9858 - '83 310 MH (silver billet)
Also, I would think that jpurdy's '81 and Alan's '82 would be four digits rather than three.
Just when I thought I had solved the mystery....... Dixie throws me a curve ball!