Good news (at least for me) just out that the askis star on vin tags was not on all models automatically in 1971. As late as possible febuary, the ‘*’ could not be on the vin tag. Mine will not come with it for being an early year. I am still looking to have to tool made in case of fiture use though.
From what I was told the "*" was put there to indicate the beginning and end of the VIN so no one could easily put numbers there to alter it (i.e., change for theft reasons, etc.,) . The current 17 digit VIN format uses the 9th position as a "check" digit created from the other 16 characters via a special formula.
