Thank you for your concise reply Bob.
Yes, both my ‘83 and my ‘85’s seventeen digit ‘VIN’ number begin with 12AAV.
And, of course, to register my Avantis the VIN number was the only identification number the Mass registry cared about.
However, the OP of this thread, Brooks Barnes, asked where he could find an RQB number on his ‘85 Avanti and, lacking a better term, I referred to it as an internal (factory) sequence number, and it could be found on a steel plate affixed to the left ‘A’ pillar on his car.
Apparently that plate is missing or obscured on Mr Barnes’s ‘85 Avanti… but I strongly feel that there was RQB4152 placed on that plate when his Avanti left Avanti Motors… as did apparently all other ‘85 Avantis have an RQB+ four digit internal sequence number.
When Avantis began to be produced again for the ‘87 model year, the internal ‘RQB’ designation was gone and the seventeen digit VIN number, starting with 12AAV, or sometimes just AAV, began to be commonly used for rosters, etc…. Take care, Ed C