I would first like to say that I did some preliminary research and came away with more questions than answers. I know that a fair number of frequent C&V contributors are road bike enthusiasts and heavy steel Schwinn's are not your standard cup of tea with that being said maybe someone might be kind enough to enlighten me on my most recent acquisition. I have a Schwinn Typhoon beach cruiser with the serial number on the left rear dropout. 7 digit HB0xxx and at first I thought it was H80xxxx which would have been August 1958 on closer inspection in turned out to be HB0xxxx which lists as a August 1966. Depending on where you look it says 2 letter codes were used starting January 1965 with AA and located on the head tube but elsewhere it says that the dropout stamping was from 1952 to 1969 . Mine has the two letter code but is stamped on the left dropout. Am I getting bad information and if so is there a better database with more accurate statistics? I was also able to find out that the Typhoon was only made 1962 to 1982 if I can believe that either. Complete bike in unremarkable condition but complete except for fenders. Kind of fell in my lap you know how it is right? Sorry no pictures yet less than 24 hours since purchase.

There are probably several here that can help. That being said, I would head over to The Cabe, they know Schwinn like nobody's business and should get you right there.

I looked up the HB on a couple of sites and also came up with August '66 as well. Seems good to me.

Just for fun, I looked up the catalog page for the 1966 Typhoon:
Schwinn catalogs, 1961 - 1970 (405 of 765)
and the dealer's specification page:
Schwinn catalogs, 1961 - 1970 (510 of 765)

Photos taken at Disneyland!