1970 LS6 Chevelle "Pilot Car"

[Verne_Frantz]

Greg,
The Impala in question is owned by one of our local club members here in NJ. I agree that the subject of Chevy pilot cars is incredibly interesting, and important, but it is also hardly understood or documented at all, unfortunately. I've already demonstrated my lack of knowledge in the era of your Chevelle. For the last 23 years I've been poking into '58-'64 fullsized Chevys, and this '64 is the first and only true pilot car I've heard of. There are some people on the Corvette side of the Chevy hobby who are fairly well versed in pilot cars. I've learned a little more from one of the most knowledgable of them. For instance, the pre-production pilot cars would include at least one of each body style, to check the body panel fit and proper set-up of the jig used to hold it all together for welding - and of course to establish assembly procedures. They were also typically highly optioned, since the installation procedure of all available options had to be established as well. Those cars were not pre-assigned with VIN numbers. Of the group of them, the ones that met "spec" after completion and inspection, and could be sold, were assigned the first few VINs (off line, after they were done). This '64 is body #2 of that style (I guess #1 didn't turn out so well??), and it was assigned VIN 100006. (the first car was 100001).
I agree with you that there certainly must have been more engineering notes, directives, memos, etc regarding these cars. In the case of your car, with it's mid year introduction of special equipment, there certainly had to be some engineering documents to specifically direct the building of that car, with special instructions, notes or reports generated that eventually ended up in a revised assembly manual covering that RPO. I just don't know how we're going to get lucky enough to dig them out of the black hole that exists within Chevrolet now.

Didn't mean to wander off the topic of your car. It's one of my all-time favorite color combinations too. If I owned that car, I'd never, ever sell it......

Verne