CAMAROFACTS Field guide · 1967–2024

Cowl tag decoder

The Fisher Body tag on the firewall records how the body was built — paint, interior trim, build date, plant, and on mid-1969 Norwood cars the X-code that maps to a drivetrain and trim family. Type what your tag reads. Nothing is uploaded; decoding runs entirely on your device.

The tag is not the VIN. The cowl tag is a Fisher Body record describing the body shell; the VIN identifies the vehicle. Similar-looking digits do not make them interchangeable, and the two are checked against each other, not substituted for one another. Decode the VIN separately →

1967–1969. Cowl tags were fitted through 1985, but the later layouts and code tables are not tabulated here yet. 1967 and 1968 only — a 1969 interior trim table has not been captured yet.

1969 Norwood

What an X-code can and cannot tell you

From build week 12B — the second week of December 1968 — the Norwood plant stamped an Xnn code on 1969 cowl tags. It was an internal aid telling Fisher Body which trim and paint treatment a body needed, but because the codes track drivetrain and trim families, they are now one of the most useful checks on what a 1969 car originally was.

X11
Not a big block and not a Z/28, with Z21 style trim
X22
Big block, with style trim
X33
Z/28, with style trim
X44
Not a big block and not a Z/28, without style trim
X55
SS350, without style trim
X66
Big block, without style trim
X77
Z/28, without style trim
Z10
Indy Pace Car replica (hardtop, RPO Z10)
Z11
Indy Pace Car replica (convertible, RPO Z11)

X-codes were applied at Norwood, Ohio only. A Van Nuys car never had one, so its absence on an LA car proves nothing. Norwood began stamping them with build week 12B — the second week of December 1968. Earlier 1969 Norwood cars predate the practice and will not carry one. The codes told Fisher Body which trim and paint treatment a body needed. They map to drivetrain and trim families, which is what makes them useful now — but they were never intended as a record of what the car was. A separate D80 stamp (spoilers) sometimes appears but was not applied consistently.