"Brass Hat" Car?

[iluv69s]

In the early 90's my buddy bought an LS-6 vert and I remember him showing me the build sheet which arrived via fed ex before the car. The build sheet said 'zone promotion vehicle'... or maybe 'zone production vehicle'... he always said it was probably the first LS-6 vert... I guess that has nothing to do with brass hat..??

I think I remember the 67 or 69 Indy Camaros and brass hat cars being in the same conversation though..??

[marxjunk]

define: brass hat
noun-informal
a high-ranking officer in the armed forces.

as it applies here:
a special car for a special person...a high ranking person in a company or society..

so no not the same..but a Pace car built for Bill France would be a brass hat car..

zone cars are diff, they where demonstrators that usually zone managers ordered and drove for an amount of time, then turned back into inventory...

[ruc]

Looks like car was delivered to Miami Fl.
Was built 1st week in Oct.

[StealthBird]

ruc, here's one of my pages describing a 1969 Pontiac invoice breakdown. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/smile.gif[/img]

http://www.musclecarfilms.com/Pontiac_Invoice.html

If you have the invoice, I can help you decode any of the other information. If you'd like to share the invoice, please send to [email protected] (or just PM me). If you'd like to share it publicly, please post! I have many invoices, and even a few original window stickers, for brass hat cars. I also have invoices for several 33+ optioned cars.

It's hard to tell what your car was used for unless you can provide more information.

Mike

[ruc]

Thanks Mike,
I will send you a copy of the PHS

[ruc]

Mike,
Just sent you a copy of the PHS and the build sheet.

[StealthBird]

Hey Doug, I did reply to your e-mail, hope you received it! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/smile.gif[/img]

Mike

[Kurt S]

Realize that Brass Hat was a dealer-invented term for cars that they picked up at auctions after the cars had been used in company service. Most were manager's cars - drive for 3000 miles and get a new one....

[bergy]

In the late '60s and early '70s, in order to qualify a &quot;company car&quot; - an employee had to be an 8th level department head or higher (up through unclassified). A salaried supervisor was 5th level, so you had to get a few promotions before being assigned a company vehicle. Most of the cars that were driven on a daily basis in company service by a department head were already spoken for by an employee who went to the personnel department and specified the car &amp; options. Cars that were ordered by an employee and not assigned to a specific department head wound up in the &quot;pool&quot;. Pool cars got driven by everyone and anyone (theoretically for company business) and generally got the snot beat out of them. So, it was best to get a department head to agree to drive your company car rather then have it assigned to the pool. If there weren't enough orders by employees to populate the company vehicle program, the personnel department would simply order additional unspoken for cars. These cars were usually really loaded with options so that they would be easy to sell (or brought good $$ at auction) when they were taken out of service. So, it was the pool cars that frequently wound up at auction.

[Keith Seymore]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: bergy</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In the late '60s and early '70s, in order to qualify a &quot;company car&quot; - an employee had to be an 8th level department head or higher (up through unclassified). A salaried supervisor was 5th level, so you had to get a few promotions before being assigned a company vehicle. </div></div>

That was part of my strategy for starting out as a production supervisor immediately after graduation: I hired on as 6th level, giving me a head start over my counterparts who went directly into engineering positions (as 5th level). As a result I &quot;skyrocketed&quot; (lol) to the coveted 8th level position. Unfortunately by that point we were not able to select the option content of our PEP vehicles - they were assigned randomly by the fleet office.

The exception would be the &quot;Drive and Buy&quot; program. We were able to specify the content of the vehicle, drive it for the allotted time period (3000 miles or 7500 miles) and accrue the associated discounts with the intention of buying it when it came out of company use. I bought quite a few Suburbans at 38% off (mileage plus past model year discount).

That lasted for me from 1991 through the unpleasantness of 2008.

K