[William]

Hoo boy, Rudser!! Aka Lo-Gross or Wholesale Larry, he was a character. I remember him circa January 1984 in line at Bill Jacobs. It's 15º and most of us have coffee; Larry has a Bud.

Speaking of GM parts availability I doubt the motoring public knew that GMPD Canada was not the same as GMPD US. Parts that were n/a here sometimes were still in the books there and vice versa. The real angle was prices were often different, sometimes dramatically. We used to buy 69-70 Chevelle exhaust tips by the dozen and parcel them out profitably to other vendors under US dealer net. There were all sorts of other angles: buying the $8 truck AM/FM antenna accessory kit that was mostly the same stuff used on cars, getting new 480 distributors direct from Delco for $100 less than GMPD, wheels direct from Kelsey. One odd part was the 69-70 deep groove alternator pulley. It was actually made for aviation use; buy direct for about 1/2 of GMPD wholesale. There was also some angle on COPO Camaro upper radiator hoses but I do not remember what it was. For a while we had a lot of them.

One of of my jobs was going through the P & A price book the day it arrived looking for parts that had gone non-returnable. That was a good indication they were still available but discountinued. Sometimes they just forgot the R which is how we ended up with 40 pair of 69 Chevelle front fenders.

But for every angle you found GMPD would have one for you. Order 69 Camaro 396 emblems and receieve 70 Nova 396 emblems, 1-piece rotors were sent under the 2-piece part number, 68 Z/28 rocker covers became chromed 69s, etc. If it fit and functioned that was good enough for GM. Although sheet metal was still available in the early 90s the fit was very poor, heard lots of complaints.