Year Built Vs. Model Year

[kvinyl]

Apologies if this has been answered already but my initial searches didn't turn up anything.

I'm slightly confused in relation to the differences between Year Built and Model Year, as mentioned on the 356 Registry VIN check page. I've checked the database for a VIN I had noted on a car for sale a while ago and it's showing up as:

Year Built: 1954
Model Year: 1955

So, does this make it a 1954 or a 1955 car? (It was advertised as a 1955 at the time incidentally).

As I understand it, Porsche took their summer holidays around July / August every year and after coming back from holidays began tooling up to produce a new batch of cars. So, applying the example above, Porsche came back from their holidays in August 1954 and built the car above in the following months before the end of the year. That leads me to the following questions:

Is it called a 1955 Model Year because it had features / updates for the revised coming model added to it?
Is it titled as a 1955 car only if it was sold in 1955? (i.e. sold between Jan to Dec 1955).
Would it be titled as a 1954 car if it was sold in 1954, even though it has the 1955 model year updates? (i.e. sold between Aug to Dec 1954).

[TLC356]

I think that many cars built after Sept. were called the next model year. Dealers often (in the US) would call a leftover '54 a '55. DR. B. Johnson in 'The 356 Porsche" lists chassis number 52844 and Cab. 60693 as the last '54's. (in '54 production of '54's went until Nov and Dec)
I hope that helps. Tom

[Gary71]

This is still the case in the industry now. Model year up dates are always during the previous year, so a car going into production past about WK22 this year will be a 15my car.

[Gary71]

My 911 is '72my but was built in September '71

[DanG]

My 1970 911 was built in September '69 although the COA I got from Porsche says it was build on New Years Eve 1969....

[Mike Smith]

You have to take a number of factors into account with 356`s


Porsche only bolted on the Mechanicals - Reutter or Karman built the car

So at what point did Porsche instruct Reutter or Karmann that they were building next year’s model ?

All Models were built in parallel, so on any one day - Coupes, Cabriolets, Carrera`s, Speedsters and Pre-production prototypes etc. would all be leaving the production line in no particular order

There were also cars that had to be returned to Reutter and Karman for correction work (usually Paint or damage problems) so they left the line many days (sometimes weeks) out of sequence

Every car was road tested and all did not pass inspection, these were returned for rectification, sometimes major (Transmissions and Engines)

In addition and for numerous reasons cars did not leave the line in Chassis number order? (There was times when A`s and B`s were on the line at the same time)

Throughout the Motor Industry, any changes required to the production lines and assembly procedures are usually (?) carried out during Holiday Shutdowns (Summer and Christmas) - There will always be some cars still in production when the lines are closed and these are usually pushed off and stored while the line modifications are carried out.

During some years there was no Summer or Christmas Shutdown


The Chassis number delineates The Model.
However, at what point the car arrives with the customer can vary considerably.
It is possible to have a 55 Model leaving the production line in 1954, 55 or 56

[kvinyl]

Thanks to all for their comments, interesting info there to digest, in particular a lot of scenarios mentioned in Mike's reply that I would never have considered...