[Hotrodfarmboy]

I have a '67 GTO convertible that I have owned since the early '80s. I always knew that it was a special car because it was loaded with options. I found a partial build sheet under the carpet that stated under charged to : Pontiac Motor Div. and ship to : Continental Whse, Montibello, Ca. The PHS paperwork shows charge to : Zone 50 Dealer 002 and ship to :Zone 24 Dealer 991. From the research I have done the confirms it as a Brass Hat car. I tried DMV to search the original owner but hit a dead end. I have been unable to find out what It was used for. Was it a parade or movie car? I don't think it was an "exec" car because it was build in June '67 when the '68s were almost out and the date on the PHS is Dec '67 It is Silverglaze with black interior. I'm hoping somebody out there in Pontiac land knows this car or has a picture of it in a parade in southern California. I would appreciate any comments or opinions.
thanks, Tony

[padgett]

Back in the day, a friend of the zone office could specify any Pontiac with any options and the Zone would order it, keep in its inventory for 500 miles, then sell to the "friend" at a big discount. Was great for someone who did not qualify for a Class A discount.

[dataway]

Mine is supposedly a "Zone Brass Demo car ... a the minimum" according to a researcher who saw my billing information and contacted me.

Here are some giveaways ...

Invoice number might be strange ... Mine was just a "J" no number (internal billing prefix)

Discount box: 21% Hold back box: .00 ... this indicates use by PMD

Simple Zone delivery would not have the 21 in the discount box.

Will usually be sold afterwards to a dealer in the same zone.

I guess typically there is more billing info generated for the final sale to customer or PMD employee. From what I am told these cars can have multiple billing records.

This fits in well with the info I got from the owner when I bought it in 1976 ... he told me he bought it from "A Pontiac dealer's wife"

[Simple Man]

I've always thought the same about my 68. Built 12/67, and was sent to Pontiac Engineering, not a dealer. I've also wondered if it was used as display filler at some of the major car shows (Chicago Auto Show, Detroit Auto Show, etc).It's loaded with options, also.

[U47]

Do these Brass Hat cars have S/O tags next to the firewall like S/O cars are supposed to have?

[dataway]

Here is my billing history.

Zone 19 Memphis (I grew up in Memphis and bought the car there)

Dealer 992 No such dealer, this is the number they use for PMD

You can see the invoice number shows only "J"

And the 21 for the discount percentage, basically no one outside PMD gets a 21% discount off MSRP. And no dealer holdback because it didn't go to a dealer.

What is missing is the subsequent billing history about who it was sold to after PMD was no longer using it.

This PHS was done about 25 years ago ... anyone know if they have come up with more records, or more information since that time?

[johnta1]

I think you might have to ask PHS if they have another BHC for your car?
Through the years we have learned a lot more from these.
(Lot of work by BVZ and John V especially)

BTW I think BVZ updated some info later on that is different from what was told on your BHC. (different posts)

The State CD code of 03 is Arkansas in the TO section. Code 42 is Texas.
(car build at Arlington plant)

Probably the Zone code area (992) was in Arkansas (which is in the Memphis Zone 19)

Maybe BVZ will revisit this?

[padgett]

Think you will find that John S., Fred S., and Pete M. did the most to make it all possible.

ps anyone know what an 80 column Hollerith card is ? Two digit numbers at bottom of cell are column numbers. Even in the 60s GM used a lot of computers.
Super trivia: what was the magic marker for ?

[dataway]

Anyone that's coded would see the relevance, same reason standard line of code is 80 characters and most original CRT screens were 80 characters wide ... all from the good old punch card.

[johnta1]

Think you will find that John S., Fred S., and Pete M. did the most to make it all possible.

I agree they helped a lot on the Pontiac knowledge!
But some of the data out there is still not known or understood.
What I wrote above was the work of BVZ and John V's input.
We are still learning more and need to still find out what it all means.
Too many days have expired and the knowledge is being lost with no documentation.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by U47

Do these Brass Hat cars have S/O tags next to the firewall like S/O cars are supposed to have?

What's an "S/O tag" or "S/O car" in this context?

K

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by padgett

Back in the day, a friend of the zone office could specify any Pontiac with any options and the Zone would order it, keep in its inventory for 500 miles, then sell to the "friend" at a big discount. Was great for someone who did not qualify for a Class A discount.

By the time I got a company car the requirement was changed such that you had to buy one per year to keep the free one.

I did what you suggested here, as well as picking vehicles from the development fleet and buying those. In fact, when we moved back to Michigan from Arizona I chose an M van from the DPG fleet, drove it back (with my personal Blazer on the trailer) and bought the van (at a discount) on this end to fulfill my purchase requirement.

Over a 20 year period there were times we purchased as many as four vehicles in a year. I think the biggest discount I got was on a Suburban, at 38% off, which included Class A, maximum miles and past model year discount.

K

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by padgett

ps anyone know what an 80 column Hollerith card is ? Two digit numbers at bottom of cell are column numbers. Even in the 60s GM used a lot of computers.
Super trivia: what was the magic marker for ?

What magic marker are you referring to?

When I started at GMI we were still coding stacks of punch cards in FORTRAN.

K

[John V.]

Keith, please tell me you weren't one of THOSE guys that walked around campus with your program stack of IBM punch cards in your shirt pocket!

CIrca 1975, I had a part-time night job at an on-campus research facility. My job was to take the stacks of punch cards left by the staff engineers during the day, load them into the card reader and baby sit while the printer outputted the data on the continuous tractor feed "fan fold" paper, I believe 15" x 11" format. IIRC, some of those programs produced hundreds of pages of output. I could study (or probably more often, fall asleep) while the printer slowly churned out the paper. Didn't always wake up right away when it jammed or ran out of paper. Probably got paid about $2/hr.

I entered college a bit earlier than you, we also learned Fortran (and a modified proprietary campus version). I struggled in Computer Science. I used to tell the story that I never heard of a calculator when I arrived at engineering school in 1973. And they were not allowed for exams at least when I started. Not sure I was ever able to keypunch an error free program involving 10 cards!

Tony, many (all?) PMD Company Cars I've seen records on were very heavily optioned. You could just about guess a Pontiac was first used as a Company Car simply by viewing the option list. I always assumed there was a pecking order and each Zone employee was eligible to order a car with a particular "value" based on how high up the ladder they were. So the top guy might get a loaded Bonneville convert, a junior exec eligible for a loaded GTO or Firebird.

Just my assumption, guys who worked at a Zone office in the '60s would certainly be able to say more.

You could ask PHS to search for any additional records for your VIN. Each "transaction" typically resulted in a billing record.

I haven't done any research on '67s, not sure what the '67 PHS records look like, my vague recollection is the '67 document is very similar to the '68 PHS records such as dataway posted.

You indicate the Charge To and Ship To names shown on the document you found under the carpet but you didn't say whether there were codes listed.

I would guess that the Continental Warehouse in Montebello, Ca was coded 24-991. Johnta1 has three different identities for the 24-991 code.

Generally, 99x "dealer" codes identified some sort of storage facility associated with the particular Zone. There were apparently multiple such facilities in each Zone. In '69, for which I have done a good bit of research of records, it was clear that the Zones were ordering cars to be built for Zone Inventory. These cars could sit unused at the storage facility where they were initially shipped for days, weeks, or even many months before a Dealer in the Zone purchased them and then retailed them as never driven new cars just as if they were fresh from the factory. A lot of '69 TAs were built for Zone Inventory and sat unclaimed in this way for varying amounts of time.

So generally, the 99x code tells you very little.

Of more interest to me is the "Zone" 50 indicated on the PHS record you received. Johnta1 has recorded a handful of records that showed Zone 50.

But none of them any earlier than for a '70. Doesn't help understand the use of that Zone code for your '67.

I agree with dataway, the Invoice No. prefix might shed some light.

And if it was built for a PMD purpose (Company Car use or anything else), it would be helpful if PHS was able to come up with one or more additional billing records because eventually PMD would have sold it to get it off their books, normally to a Dealer where it would have been retailed.

If the Ship To has a more complete address for the Continental Warehouse, that would be interesting to see if a history of that warehouse can be found.

Looking at the dates you provided from the PHS, the June '67 date does seem a bit late, but if an exec was due for a new car (perhaps the guy was a new hire), '67s are what he had to choose from and '68s wouldn't be out for a few more months.

If the Invoice Date is Dec '67 and if the Invoice No. prefix indicates it was an actual sale by PMD, I'm guessing 50-002 may identify a GM Div. (I'm thinking a Div. like Rochester Products or perhaps GMC Truck) or even perhaps a 3rd party supplier would be able to purchase PMD Company Cars put up for sale (Hurst or Goodyear Tire perhaps) when the Zone was done with it.

I can't recall being made aware of any such "transfer" of an asset like this, but it is certainly possible that PMD Company Cars would be offered to employees at GM Divs outside of PMD or perhaps employees at a 3rd party supplier and the sale was orchestrated thru their employer with PMD selling to them (perhaps to skirt PMD's Dealer Agreement).

And whatever that entity was, the 50-002 would have been the one paying PMD.

If that is what the PHS doc is showing, it could be that the doc you found under the carpet would be the earlier more useful one if your GTO did serve a purpose more interesting than as a Zone employee Company Car, it would be an earlier billing record that might reveal it. Still worth asking PHS if they can find the record from when it initially shipped after final assembly.

Given the no. of PMD Company Cars supplied to the various Zones, I believe it is more likely that it was initially built for that purpose as opposed to the more rare examples that were exhibited at the various Auto Shows or were used for various engineering tests or advertising campaigns.

Some of the '64 PHS records provide the name of the employee that the Company Car was built for. I'm guessing that isn't true of the '67 PHS records. But you might look at the document you found under the carpet to see if the car was tagged for anybody by name.

That's the best I've got.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Hello HotRodFarmBoy and Welcome to PY Forum.

Numerous sources of deep knowledge on here about the Billing Cards , Invoices and Buildsheets.
And many of us that enjoy crunching the material.
But - you will need to upload attachments of your documents before we can really look very deep into them.
Scans or clear picture images.

At least 3 or 4 of 50-001 cars, we know so far, were sold to ranking PMD employees who evidently knew how to work the system to get their desired car at desired price, and without going through a dealership as a go between on the transaction.
At least 3 of those were previously "PMD Cars" bought after their duty ended. (used)
And they were all Invoice Document cars that spell some things out a little more than Billing Card Documents.

Don't know the full details of those arrangements or why they were allowed to bypass going through dealer principles.
It is "highly suspected" they got even better bargains than others may have.


All of the 50-001 examples we have information on are east coast deals.
Yours being west coast might could explain the 50-002 (instead of 001)

Then there are the Hurst SSJ Conversion Cars with 50-010 / 012
I don't think your car will be in that type scenario.

There was a Zone 24 office in Montebello CA, as well as inventory storage facilities.

The only real peculiarity about the dates are the 6 month span between them.
3 months or 3000 miles was the normal duty.
Some cars don't sell as quickly as others sometimes, among various possibilities.

We can always tell much more after scrutinizing the documents.
You will likely get agreements and variations on some things contained, but you will walk away knowing considerably more afterwards.

Sounds like an Extremely Awesome GTO .

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by Simple Man

I've always thought the same about my 68. Built 12/67, and was sent to Pontiac Engineering, not a dealer. I've also wondered if it was used as display filler at some of the major car shows (Chicago Auto Show, Detroit Auto Show, etc).It's loaded with options, also.

Found BHC on a 68 Bird400 Vert that went to PMD Engineering 35-998 a week after your GTO did.
Also LOADED like a freight train !
$4783 MSRP to your $4767 MSRP
2 really fancy cars just in time for Christmas !

a convertible in December - in MICHIGAN ?
ouch

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Don't know the full details of those arrangements or why they were allowed to bypass going through dealer principles.
It is "highly suspected" they got even better bargains than others may have.

What many don't realize is that employees were required to take delivery either through the PMD Retail Store or a nearby dealer entity - when buying a vehicle (new or PMD used - at whatever discount)

One outside possibility to this 50-xxx account is - the purchaser was also the same employee who used the car under PMD duty.
And allowed to bypass dealer prep/inspection since they were already fully aware of the cars condition and state of well being.

But that doesn't quite fit well with the 6 month span on yours.
As far as them having been the user of the car for 3 months or 3000 miles whichever comes First.
Could speculate even more about unforeseen financial circumstance that put a hold on the purchase (wife was pregnant - daughter pregnant with shotgun wedding pending ,,,, etc ...) but we could dream things up all day like that and really lose focus.

But lets go with that not being a dead match for now.

Then there are the Hurst SSJ Conversion Cars with 50-010 / 012
I don't think your car will be in that type scenario.

These cars were sent to Hurst for modifications, then returned to PMD, and sold through PMD Dealerships.

So lets think about that a little for a moment.
Would PMD "sell" the cars to Hurst - then "buy" them back from Hurst after the conversion ?
Seems unlikely to have been the protocol.
Account "50-xxx" may have originally been formed as a "gift account" (loose term) and later/consequently used for those Hurst cars just to keep paper trail on those conversion vehicles.

What i am alluding to in these respects is - it leans some possibilities that these 50-001 cars and your 50-002 car were gifted to those ranking employees. For whatever award or merit or milestone achieved by them.

We don't have a full definition for 50-xxx like we do for most all others.
But we are building a definition as we go.
We do know some history on the Enoch , Toth and Goad cars that were 50-001
Your documents will help build onto those .

Still can only say for now that at least 3 of the "50-xxx" cars were obtained by PMD ranking employees.
Beyond that , "50-00x" is still a bit mysterious

It could have just been a loop-hole for those on the inside to score even better deals on PMD Used cars.
At a minimum

A 69 Pattern/Zone Judge went to PMD in Montibello, so we know they had storage there. (Buildsheet document)
The 70 OO IV Judge used in 2LaneBlacktop movie was ordered through PMD Montibello Zone Office. (Buildsheet document)
So they had business dealings there.
The address used on those were 329 Van Norman Rd

[padgett]

"one of THOSE guys that walked around campus with your program stack of IBM punch cards in your shirt pocket!" Naah that is what shoeboxes were for. Real programs could be a stack a box or two long.

Personally liked FORTRAN 5 the best, it added IF-THEN-ELSE and CASE statements but ADA was first I saw that you could define 2+2=5. And then there was Mil-std-1750A, a coprocessor in search of a processor.

When I was there MODCOMPs were the thing thought I found EPTAKs to be better process controllers.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

deleted a previous because it might have been controversial in some form.
really sorry about that

And found some other prospective info that might lend support to counter against my doubts too.
Another discussion for another time, in another thread.

[Hotrodfarmboy]

Originally Posted by johnta1

I think you might have to ask PHS if they have another BHC for your car?
Through the years we have learned a lot more from these.
(Lot of work by BVZ and John V especially)

BTW I think BVZ updated some info later on that is different from what was told on your BHC. (different posts)

The State CD code of 03 is Arkansas in the TO section. Code 42 is Texas.
(car build at Arlington plant)

Probably the Zone code area (992) was in Arkansas (which is in the Memphis Zone 19)

Maybe BVZ will revisit this?

I read somewhere in this forum that 991 is code for new cars and 992 is code for used cars