M38A1 with mismatched serial plates

Hank44 · Post by **Hank44** » Tue May 26, 2020 7:47 pm

The data plate on the fender well and the data plate on my dash are off from each other by a few numbers. I'd have to look again to be exact, but they are really close in sequence. Mine is a 1964 USMC model. My belief is that they have been that way since the start. I don't honestly think that two Jeeps in a motor pool would have been that close in numbers, but who knows....

Post by **wesk** » Tue May 26, 2020 8:13 pm

The jeeps were delivered from the factory to units in batches. This means a series of 20 or 40 jeeps with mostly sequential serial numbers went to a single unit. So it is quite common for many jeeps in the same motor pool to have close serials. It is also quite common for the easy to swap, screwed on, dash serial plates to get removed for the few changes that were overstamped on the plates over the years and for those dash serial plates to end up on the wrong jeep which happened to be only several serials different. It is also possible that 20 1964 M38A1's entered a Marine Corp Vehicle depot for overhaul and then had their tubs, frames and dash serial plates mixed up.

The rare instance would be when an M38A1 that did not have matching tub patent plate and dash serial plates get thru it's acceptance inspection by the military representative (Inspectors) at the end of the Willys/Kaiser factory assembly line.

At this juncture in history the only course of action for you to take is to insure both serial plates on your jeep match the serial on your title. This will necessitate the purchase of a blank dash or patent plate to make the need correction on.

On another note: when did the Dodge M37 production switch to the M37B1? I have a 54 M37 and I am reasonably certain the M37B1 entered production in 1958.

Hank44 · Post by **Hank44** » Wed May 27, 2020 9:07 am

Well....Then I guess the most likely case with my mismatch is that the dash plate was taken off at one point in service for whatever reason and swapped with one from another Jeep in the motor pool. Maybe during a repaint or something?

Yes...The M37B1 series included slight changes starting in 1958.