How can I tell if my buddy's '79 cj5 left the factory as a renagade?(hood stickers are gone) I've been told that renagades had a factory tach, or that they didn't have tailgates, Is there a digit in the VIN that denotes reny?
Thanks in advance for your help:usa:

miine is a renegade...no tach and i have a tailgate!!. check over on cjoffroad.com they have a vin lookup for codes. not sure if there is a particular one for renegade or not

No-

Renagades did not have a tailgate. Not sure about tach.

They usually had a clock to the left of the steering wheel. That's all I know.

I've had 2 1979 cj5's.

My Renegade had a 304, power steering/brakes, tilt column and limited slip from the factory. (no tail gate)

My standard issue had the 258, manual steering/brakes, no tilt and open rear.
other than that; the renegade had some neat faded stickers.

I'm not certain of all the differences, but those were some note worthy differences in the ones i've owned.

No '79 CJ5 had a tailgate. I can't recall what year they quit tailgates on the CJ5, but it was around the time they went to an interior wiper motor and launched the CJ7.

I've owned several renegade/ non-renegade CJ's and, as far as I can tell, everything that could be had one the "Renegade" package could be had as on opition on non-Renegades...you just didn't get the stickers.

You could get a tailgate all the way up to '83, just had to order it.

To put it simply, no, there is absolutley no way to tell.