Vintage Cars: Production month of 57 Cevy BelAir, 57 chevy, cowl tag

Question
Hi, I own a 57 Chevy BelAir 4-door Sedan and want to celebrate it's 50th Birthday! Now I tried to find out what month or even day it was build, but was not successful. Here are the specifics: VIN VC57L 196336 Body 57-1019D VN 7883 667 818D. This tells me it was the 7883rd body of this style build 1957 in LA of this bodystyle, but the seq.-# 196336 (number is correct) I can NOT see being build in 57 in LA at all! Everything else seems to fit, even the one pcs front bumper. (The Engine is a replacement 283, so I can't take the date code of that.) I would really appreciate your help! Thanks!

Answer
The VIn decodes this way:

V=V8
C=Bel Air
57=year
L=Los Angeles CA plant
196336= 186,335th car built at that plant that year.

The Cowl tag can be decoded at this site:

http://chevy.tocmp.com/models/trim.htm#trim57

I don't see any problem with the numbers, seems like an LA car to me.

But to get closer on the actual build date without the original engine, is it possible the heads or manifolds are original?  If so they will have cast-in dates that you can decode.

Also the tranny should have the VIN on it somewhere and it also has a cast-in date.  These dates on drive-train parts won't be the exact same date as the car, but they should be within a few days/weeks in most cases.

I hope this helps.

Don