Where's my serial number?
- Late 1960s and later: usually on a small plate on the dashboard, visible through the windshield on the driver's side.
- Earlier cars: it varies by make and year. Common places are the driver's door pillar or hinge post, the steering column, the firewall, or near the glove box. Each make's page lists what our sources say.
- Paperwork: your title and registration also show it.
Example: D205001 (an example Nash serial).
Years we cover
1950-1957.
What a Nash serial looks like, by year
Each example below is split into numbered groups of characters, with what each group means. Example numbers show the layout; they are not a specific car.
1950-1957
Looks like D205001 (7 characters)
| 1 Series prefix | D: Rambler [NASH50] [NASH54] [NASH55] |
| 2 Sequence number | 205001 [NASH50] [NASH54] [NASH55] |
- For 1950 the club lists Rambler first serial D-1001; a Hudson-Essex-Terraplane Club forum poster (via search summary, not page-read) gives D-12501 to D-78917 as the 1950 Rambler range.
- The 1957 page shows D-341101, F-1001 and V-16501 without saying which model each belongs to; F and V prefixes are therefore not encoded.
The model year is not encoded in the number. The club lists only the FIRST serial number of each model year, so a year cannot be read from the number alone: Rambler first serials D-1001 (1950), D-79501 (1952, Kenosha Deluxe), D-171501 (1954), D-205001 (1955), D-276101 (1956), D-341101 (1957, Rambler Rebel area). Statesman K-615501 (1954 and 1955) and Ambassador R-556001 (1950), R-722501 (1954), R-742901 (1955).
Nash Healey uses an N prefix (N-3701 first serial listed for 1954) and the Metropolitan uses A-E / B-E prefixes; neither is encoded here.
Club pages reproduce the Official Specifications 1902-1957 book; the page text is scrambled, so row-to-serial pairings were read with care and may be off.
What a serial number cannot tell you
It identifies what the factory recorded in the number: typically the model year, assembly plant, series or body and production sequence, and in some years the engine. It cannot confirm a car is original or numbers-matching. Compare stampings, body tags and documentation.