When Your Fairmont Car or Engine Was Built
People sometimes call me and ask me if I can tell them when their car or engine was built. Hey, I'm not Fairmont...but I do have a couple of lists from 1990-era Speeder magazines that I use. The key is that Fairmont car numbers remained fairly consecutive without regard to model. If an M9 rolled off the line followed by an A3, they would be one number apart. Two-cycle engines were built by Fairmont as needed, so these would be fairly consecutive also.
If you have a Fairmont car or 2-cycle engine number, you can make a good estimate of when it was built from perusing the lists below and finding when numbers near yours were assigned. Use the zoom feature on your browser if you need to, or you could just print the lists. Thanks go to the Speeder Magazine for providing these useful lists.
List 1 (Illinois Central Motor Car Data Sheet)
List 2 (Speeder Magazine Car History Reference Sheet)
On Onan engines, the serial number of the
motor will tell you when it was built. Take for instance, a serial number
E820004567 - the "E" is the month of the year (A = January, B =
February....) and the 820 is the year. So for this example, the build date
is 5/82. Thank you Zack Hilton for discovering this.
Last Edited 28 January, 2018
