This sounds very interesting - just what we've all been waiting for. I joined this board just to participate in this discussion. For all the work involved, I hope that Jim Mattison & company do make a good profit from this endeavor - he/they deserve it.
I've corresponded a few times with Alan Colvin (we both own the same type of car - a 1971 GMC Sprint SP-454). This is exactly the type of thing that Alan would be interestd in (and good at). So it wouldn't surprise me if he is in on it too.
As far as the records go -
One theory I've heard is that the US Government has records on all motor vehicles including the VIN, options installed, color, etc. Auto manufacturers were required to report this data to the government, and the goverment used the data for "law enforcement" purposes among other things.
That sounds plausible. For example, the FBI was able to eventually track down the Oklahoma City bomber based upon the VIN found on the axle housing of the Ryder truck used.
The topic of "fake" cars has always been of interest to me. My expertise is in Chevelles & El Caminos. I always get more than a little miffed when I see a fake car passed off as real. Especially when people pay high prices for a "rare" car and they believe that it is genuine just because it came from some celebrity's collection. I suspect that a very high percentage of the cars in celebrities' collections are fake because most of them purchase their cars at these big auctions (were a lot of fake cars are sold, I believe). For example, last January there was a '72 SS-454 Chevelle convertible up for auction in Scottsdale. The TV commentators stated how the cars in the auction were thoroughly checked out and legitimate. That '72 Chevelle sold for over $35,000. A real one is quite rare and worth that. But I happen to know that the car auctioned had a 350 V8 VIN.
A while back I put together a site with info on how to tell a real '68-'72 SS Chevelle or El Camino from a fake one. I believe my site has the best and most accurate info available on this topic. Of course, once the JM data comes out, it will be the ultimate source.
My Chevelle SS identification site is located at:
http://www.chevelles.com/shop/ss_ident.html
I wonder if the JM data will provide insights on production totals for various cars. For example, wouldn't it be great if we knew how many '69 SS-396 4-speed Chevelle convertibles were built !? Once again, lacking concrete data, I came up with the next best thing. I did a lot of research and estimating on how many of the various '68-'72 Chevelles were built with each of the different engines. Here is the result:
http://www.designscomputed.com/auto_...ody_68_72.html
I'd sure like to have all the GM data to do more automotive publications like the one above !
PS:
Mowtown, If Jim is having difficulty interpreting some of the '71-'72 Chevelle data, I may have a useful clue. After studying Chevrolet's '71-'72 Chevelle & El Camino RPO totals report, I discovered that the GMC Sprint production totals were lumped into the Chevelle production reports.