Two part answer here;
1) '71 standard interior armrest - it appears that everything prior to 02D had the deluxe style soft armrest with map pockets (like '70). The hard plastic "camaro-style" armrests started to appear in 02D, but not on every color. There was a mixture of armrests, probably based on color as door panel inventory turned over, and after 03C all standard interiors appear to use the Camaro armrest.
Custom trim interiors used the soft '70 style armrest throughtout the '71 model year.
2) '71 vehicle production weeks - the earliest '71 Firebird I have record of is 08A (VIN less than 00100) built on 8/7/70. Production continued until the "all GM strike" of 1970 that ran from 9/14/70 to 11/19/70. All plants were shut down during this period. Van Nuys reopened shortly thereafter and the earliest post-strike Van Nuys car I am aware has a build week of 12B (12/14/70). Norwood stayed out on a local strike for several more weeks and did not produce cars until January. The last '71 car that I am aware of was built 06E.
An interesting outcome of the '70 contract strike was that many cars were stuck in process during the strike and unlike the well known '72 Norwood strike these cars were completed and sold. As a result there are a number of cars built in early VIN ranges of Norwood 1n105600 - 1n106300 and Van Nuys 1L102300 - 1L102700 that can have body build dates of 09B or 09C but have ship dates on their invoice and FMVSS door sticker dates of December or January. These cars also can have a mixture of component date codes ranging from June through January (dates in October are highly unlikely!).
Earliest '72 is 08C. Seems like a long changeover from '71 to '72
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