<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Verne_Frantz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I'm not sure why this topic seems to cause so much confusion. For the years I have documented (58-64) I have MANY cars on record with a trim tag build date at the end of one month and a VIN within the next month, or a trim tag build date in one week and the VIN calculated within the next week (or two). As Phil and others have stated, delays due to problems with the body or line balance considerations or parts supplier delays did result in such spacing between the start/finish of the body and the final assembly.
Now if it was the other way around...........Houston, we have a problem!
Verne [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/flag.gif[/img]
PS: I hope I haven't offended anyone since my research isn't from 1969. </div></div>
x2. I think the confusion comes because people are trying to nail it to a specific day and it is not that exact. There's a lot of ebb and flow in the process.
Sidebar: I've shepherded thousands of engineering vehicles through the build process, and a couple of my own vehicles.
I watched my '87 pickup get built in Flint. Caught up with it at 4:30 pm on Monday September 29 1986 as it was coming down out of paint into trim. Followed the cab/box through trim until it went upstairs to the body accumulator; ran downstairs to follow the motor and chassis build through body drop. After body drop I followed it down the final line. I "allowed" one of the end of line drivers to roll test it and then I drove it from the short repair line over to the shipping building myself.
I told the shipping area supervisor "Lloyd - that's my truck" and left the plant at 1:30 am Tuesday morning. It was at Graff Chevrolet in Davison by 5pm that same Tuesday (9 miles away. $525 destination charge, btw).
I tell this story not only to highlight the build timing (at 60 jobs/hour, or one complete vehicle per minute) but also to share this: a few years ago I ordered the build information/invoice from the GM Heritage Center archive. I was somewhat surprised to find they had the "shipping date" wrong - it showed Monday the 29th even though I know it did not leave the property until Tuesday the 30th. The "pay point" was reported near the end of the final line, not by when it cleared the shipping building, so I suspect this is why the document did not match how I would have phrased it in layman's terms.
K
Also note that they spelled my name wrong (!):
