2531157

Lovely. By VIN prefix do you mean the first number?  My '76 automatic begins with 23 while yours is 25.

Is the number 2 the giveaway for an automatic?

Steve      coupecs@aol.com

Thanks Steve, appreciate the good words.  It's exactly 0°F here right now, so the car is laid up in a heated garage a few towns away, waiting for spring.  Seems like there's always more to learn about these fun little cars, though, so I guess the winter is a good time to do that, and make grand plans for the warmer months. ? 

Re your question about the VIN prefix being a giveaway, from everything I've heard and read, 2002s with automatic transmissions always had VIN prefixes different than their manual trans brothers of the same year.  So you're right about the VIN being a giveaway--but it's the first 3 numbers that tell the tale, not just the first one.  

All round taillight 02s equipped with automatic transmissions had "253" as the first three letters of their VIN.  This was true for cars built from early 1969 all the way through the last of the roundies produced in August of 1973.  For the square taillight a/t cars the VINs changed more frequently, with the 1974, 1975 and 1976 cars all having different prefixes, including "239" for your '76.  (Other prefix info that's handy to know is for US TII cars, with 276 being the prefix for all roundie cars and 278 the prefix for square taillight cars.)

The 2002tii.org site has VIN-range info for all 2002s produced, but I find the FCP Euro site to be a great reference for US-market 02s: https://blog.fcpeuro.com/decoding-bmw-1600-2002-2002tii-vin-numbers.  There are other sources as well, probably including right here on FAQ;  these are just the two I've used.

Enjoy your '76!  I saw a nice Fjord one for sale last year that I still think about. ?