Luc, be very careful with this one. And, for your information.....
The way Minn Kota works their serial numbers is like this:
For early motors (there's still lots out there that are running):
'A' Series was early to mid 1970s
'B' Series was mid to late 1970s
'C' Series was late 1970s to early 1980s
'D' and 'E' Series was early 1980s
'W' Series was 1983 to 1985
"M" Series by serial number:
1000-200000 was 1985-1986
260000-520000 was 1986-1987
520000-784000 was 1987-1988
784000-1049000 was 1988-1989
1049000-1514855 was 1989-1990
1314856-1578000 was 1990-1991
1578001 and on was 1991-1992
From 1993 and on:
MK000000A 1993
MKJE 1994
MKJF 1995
MKJG 1996
and so on until 2000 which is MKAA, MKAB is 2001. The first 4 letters designate the product (Minn Kota in this case) and the second 2 are the year.
The last numbers are the actual serial numbers.
Hope this helps someone.......the info was shamelessly pilfered via a Google search.