I read some old posts on this but I really just don't understand why GM would not release by the VIN how the car was built, what options, motor, trans, etc.. when it left the factory/

They must have this info

Doug, GM doesnt have any records at all. Its been discussed in Bench alot over the years, if you want to search there you will find it but there are NO records to be seen. Plain and simple, they messed up and tossed them out along the way.

I have a hard time believing that there is not one computer tape, punch card, something that has the data. It's not like they didn't have mainframes back then to house the data.

Again read the threads in Bench about it. Some guy that was connected with some powers in GM, was allowed to search old buildings, storage etc. nothing was found.

i think you have to guess at what you have. my 68 is a S.S. car because it has the correct trim on the dash. I wish i could have more detail to support this claim. Does anyone have more clues to support a overview of what you have in the garage if it's a 68?thanks adp

AD,

The trim on the dash isn't part of the SS package. It's part of the Custom Interior package (Z87). This could be ordered on any Camaro...

You need paperwork or a matching engine to prove a 68 SS! A date matching 12 bolt rear end is an indicator, but not proof. Unfortunately, 68's are the hardest to validate.

However, IF you car was exported to Canada, you're lucky. you can still get the information from GM of Canada. For some reason they decided to keep the paperwork! The contact is George Zapora (george.zapora@cc.gmcanada.com) and he's a great guy. He loves to help out car guys. HERE'S MORE INFO... (http://www.gmcanada.com/english/maintenance/parts/parts_vint.html)

Ed

Does anyone have more clues to support a overview of what you have in the garage if it's a 68?thanks adp
http://www.camaros.org/diffs68.shtml

I was lucky on my 68 COPO, I have Ed Cunneen's verification.......

I betcha Jack Bauer would get to the bottom of it in 24 hours.

The cars were built in different places so how could GM lose all the records. Matter what anybody says I think something doesn't sound right.

Someone who worked in the GM archives claimed they (invoices) were destroyed prior to 1977 models.

Today if you want an invoice for 1977 up models you have to go to a contractor for that info and pay $50. All they have it mircofilm of the invoice, nothing on paper was kept.

Contractor is Allied Vaughn

quote from an magazine story
After final year production, the build records have very little business value to Chevrolet and therefore were not considered to be high priority for retention. GM record retention policy required the assembly plants to retain said documents for only about six months.

gap

Meanwhile, back at the Tech Center in Warren, Michigan, the Chevrolet Engineering Records Retention Policy called for periodic destrcution of non-essential records, of which the build documents were one, and this was carried out on a routine basis. The other GM divisions, Cadillac, Pontiac, etc., had much smaller production volumens and interpreted the GM Records Retention Policy differently and therefore retained said documents.

I betcha Jack Bauer would get to the bottom of it in 24 hours.

The cars were built in different places so how could GM lose all the records. Matter what anybody says I think something doesn't sound right.

Assembly plants didn't keep paper records - each plant would need a Rose Bowl to store paper records for 250,000 cars a year. They reported production to Chevrolet-Central Office daily, and C.O. maintained sales records; there was no business reason to keep the individual specifications for five million cars a year, especially with what the low-density computer mass storage media cost in those days.
:beers:

67-69 firebirds have paper work avialable . . . to bad chevy doesn't.

I read some old posts on this but I really just don't understand why GM would not release by the VIN how the car was built, what options, motor, trans, etc.. when it left the factory/

They must have this info

Records were either lost or destroyed. If GM had these records, they could sell copies to suckers like me. I would pay $$$ for real paper docs from GM on my 68. You never know. They recently found a frozen WWII airman in the Sierra Nevada's. Shouldn't be that hard to find a football field full of records.

This article appeared in the National Corvette Restorer Society's "The Corvette Restorer" magazine, Volume twenty-seven, number three, Winter 2001 issue. It's an excellent article with insight into the existence of, or lack there of, Corvette build records written by a retired GM employee.

Terry McManmon has asked me to write this for The Corvette Restorer with the intention that it may put to rest some, if not all, of the speculation about the Corvette build records. I worked for GM for 37 years and retired November 1, 1999; 24 years were at Chevrolet Engineering and the rest for GM Legal Staff. During this time, I became an expert on GM records, especially the Corvette, as it was my primary research vehicle. I therefore can speak with some authority on the subject.
About four years ago, Jim Perkins, then General Manager of Chevrolet Motor Division, put me and another employee on a Special Assignment to search anywhere and everywhere within GM for the Corvette and Camaro build records that have been so sought after. We spent two months searching the bowels of GM including dusty old warehouses, assembly plants, GMAC, financial departments, accounting departments and many other departments within GM that we thought might have a remote chance of having such documents. We also searched outside GM storage facilities such as Leonard Brothers Archives in Detroit and the Boyers storage facility in Pennsylvania that contained GM data. This was an all encompassing, no holds barred, search that Mr. Perkins authorized. We used his name and position to gain access to various departments. The departments then queried their employees and searched their files and reported to us. Since the request was from the boss, they responded thoroughly and promptly. We then followed up on any promising leads.
The results of our search will not please the Corvette world (and didn't please us either) as we were NOT able to locate the Mother Lode!!! We did find a few production records (about 2 1/2 years worth), not build sheets, back to mid-year 1976. GM already had (has) them back to about 1978.
Although the Corvette was and still is, a low production vehicle, the Engineering Records (of which the build records are just one) were NOT kept separately from other Chevrolet vehicles lines, i.e. Camaro, Corvair, trucks, etc. Chevrolet produced more vehicles than all the other GM divisions combined, and therefore generated a much higher volume of records which were a storage problem.
After final year production, the build records have very little business value to Chevrolet and therefore were not considered to be high priority for retention. GM record retention policy required the assembly plants to retain said documents for only about six months. Some records (including build sheets) were retained longer at the Corvette assembly plants, St. Louis and Flint. However, when Corvette production ceased at these locations, the records were pitched. It should be noted that the current Corvette Assembly Plant in Bowling Green, KY, retained the 1981 - present vehicle manifests that are available now through the NCM. This was against all odds, as there were many movements over the years within GM to destroy them because they had no business value to GM.
Meanwhile, back at the Tech Center in Warren, Michigan, the Chevrolet Engineering Records Retention Policy called for periodic destrcution of non-essential records, of which the build documents were one, and this was carried out on a routine basis. The other GM divisions, Cadillac, Pontiac, etc., had much smaller production volumens and interpreted the GM Records Retention Policy differently and therefore retained said documents.
GM Legal Staff did not and does not dictate the retention period of documents. GM has a procedure manual which outlines retention periods for various documents. GM Legal Staff does require retention of specific documents that are involved in litigation, but that concludes as the litigation ends.

Art Armstrong
artarmstrong@comcast.net
NCRS Member #14981
NCM Founding Member #1268

Art,

Awesome information, Thanks.

I guess to put an end to this I just still have a hard time with the fact that there is nothing on a computer tape/disk with this information.

And how much would you think it would cost to maintain such a database for all these years? Those old main frame computers for the early days were millions of $$ and required support staff up the ying yang. Once PC came out, a lot of the change over meant loss of unneeded info. I can recall when the State of Michigan went to PC's in the mid to late 80's. What once required us to drive miles to a DOT office to run our survey computions on the burrough system we could now do in our field office. The main frame was down all the time and was a sob of a system. CANDE was the system we had to learn (CANDE - Command AND Edit).

I think the only resaon Pontiac records exists in because PHS is a private company started by someone who worked for Pontiac/GM (a Pontica fanatic) and saw the records going to the trash and managed to get Ponitac's blessing to salvage them and turn it into a business. No one at at CHevy saw a gold mine in the info and let it go.

thanks ED,
i am really new at this with the camero. the car had a 10 bolt mono leaf when i bought it but i know it had been used as a donar car. the car is now a 502/502 with kiesler 5 speed. the car will come out of Thunder Valley in may 06 and be 100% complete. It would be neet to know more about the birth of the car. I will follow up with your sugestion. thanks adp

C A M A A A R O camaro

:)

thanks for the information on paper trail of camero and corvettes. the truth hurts. the general has thrown away our heritage. my 68 S.S.camero can be anything i can afford. thanks adp 68 reddog

:) CAMARO C A M A R O camaro :)

.......camero ......

Repeat after me,

I will spell Camaro correctly,
I will spell Camaro correctly,
I will spell Camaro correctly,
I will spell Camaro correctly..........................

"thanks ED,
i am really new at this with the camero. the car had a 10 bolt mono leaf when i bought it but i know it had been used as a donar car. the car is now a 502/502 with kiesler 5 speed. the car will come out of Thunder Valley in may 06 and be 100% complete. It would be neet to know more about the birth of the car. I will follow up with your sugestion. thanks"

C A M A R O , NOT ERO
C a m a r o , NOT ero
c a m a r o, NO "E" in Camaro

donor, NOT donAr

neat, NOT neet

SS , not s.s.

This article appeared in the National Corvette Restorer Society's "The Corvette Restorer" magazine, Volume twenty-seven, number three, Winter 2001 issue. It's an excellent article with insight into the existence of, or lack there of, Corvette build records written by a retired GM employee.

Art Armstrong
artarmstrong@comcast.net
NCRS Member #14981
NCM Founding Member #1268

Art is a close friend of mine - we worked together at Chevrolet Engineering for many years, and he's an active member of my NCRS chapter. :thumbsup:

I used to work on those old Mainframes (not GM's though) and they did NOT store any data like we do today. Punch card or paper tape data went in and paper reports/forms came out. Sometimes the data went to tape if it had to be read in for the next jobs run or monthlys, but the data on the tape or disk did not live long by todays standards. The only hope was vaulted reports, but per previous post, the vaults were looked at. too bad. :(

Even if you had GMs actual tapes or disks in your posession, I betcha you could not find a way to read and decode them :) That technology was scrapped a long time ago. Tapes were 1/2 wide, EBCDIC format. I still have one I use to tie tomato plants up with, its very strong plastic and free :D

What suprises me about this is how easy everyone seems to think this would have been for Chevrolet to do. Pontiac should not be used as a comparison as they had one plant in those days and built less than 1,000,000 units annually. Chevrolet had dozens of plants building millions of vehicles. Data storage was stone age in those days; keeping hardcopy out of the question. And why would they keep it? About 98% of the vehicles Chevy built were simply mundane transportation.

Makes me wonder what they do today.

I so don't agree. Why do Canadian cars still have tracking available?

I know where all of those records are.............but I'm not going to tell anybody! :)

Doug, canada is a different country and had different requirements for its Vehicle tracking, so they did the paperwork.
GM in the U.S. didnt as it wasnt required by our gov. plain and simple.

About it being in the stone age, the car was built in 68 when was the information lost? If the information was on the mainframe, tape was available then. Our mainframe tapes back then were kept for 7 years and then disgarded and reused. But full backups of client data are stored forever.

Hey I wasn't born yet when this happened so you can't blame me.

I want a new investigation, GM needs make money these days and here is an easy way. Charge me a couple hundred for my build sheet and I'll pay. Charge me for the service records and I'll pay for that too.

I just logged on to ask the exact question that started this thread. I know of a 68 convertable with ss badges and ss hood that is for sale locally for under 5k. The car needs a total resto, including trunk and floor pans. I'm not sure if it needs all new panels. It is rusty. Everything seems to be there. I'm not sure about the motor. They say it runs, but I did not get a chance to check for #'s.

The problem is, the car is in a body shop lot, and the owners are not very friendly. They are the type of people that get extremely suspicous when you start asking questions. They seemed to get really agitated when I asked about paperwork, the motor, the tranny, etc. I got no answers. Really too bad, because I would like to buy it to flip it and make some $$$. But I'm not about to attempt to take a picture in front of these people. I also don't want to lose money. Any advice?? Is 4-5k for a 68 vert, with the chance of being a true ss, worth my while?

Figures, the first cheap "barnyard car" hs to be a 68. With my luck, one of my buddies will buy it, get in good with these people, and it ends up being an original matching #'s big block vert.

I don't think you can lose money on any first gen vert for 4-5k just about. Unlike a SS or RS or Z/28, a vert can't be faked.

I'm with thedugan. One million sheets of paper stacked on to top of each other would only be 333 feet tall. I would never question John Z's knowledge of these cars, noone should. But that would hardly fill the Rose Bowl. Admittedly I am a frustrated 68 owner. I can't believe the information is not available. Mike

Frustrated why? Cuz 36+ year old paper work on a then commuter car is not available in 2006? You bought the '68, did you drill the previous owners on why they did not keep the POP and all the original paper work? What is there not to believe about a 36 year old car and no paperwork at GM?!?!

This a tired topic. Hell, the Vette guys "lost" thier paperwork also. Suck it up and be a man about it. The GM paperwork is gone and there is nothing you or I can do about it. Take that negative energy and put it into building the best '68 Camaro you can.

JohnZ and the guys do a hell of a job with trying to document the 1st Gen Camaros in thier SPARE time. The documents are gone, get over it already move on, life it short.

Wow you told us. Jeez I feel like an idiot for bringing this up. It’s 3am and I can’t go to sleep the negative energy is keeping me up. My commuter car now hates me, my wife says I’m wasting my time, and my frustration has ticked someone off.

Everyone drop this question, stop reading this post and go read a good book instead. Were a bunch of morons for even questioning this? Cfunk is right we are a bunch of crybabies for wondering the why and how’s. My negative energy must be cleansed.

I should not question the fact that when I bought the car from the Pope he told me while looking me straight in my eyes holding a bible in one hand and rosary beads in the other that it’s a true 68 RS/SS 396 conv that was once owned by Elvis….



Dude go read another post and leave us be to what we think/observe. I’m not questioning anyone’s knowledge here; just have a hard time believing the info was lost. Your point is taken that there is nothing we can do about it, but cant we talk about it? Isn’t that what this site is about.

Doug, I have been reading this thread and from the beginning and I too have a 68 car, fortunately with documents. I can see from the recent post here that several people are getting frustrated over this subject. The bottom line is this. Someday, someone may stumble up on some abandon warehouse that has boxes and boxes of GM documents. After all, the dead sea scrolls were found 2000 years later, right? But maybe this analogy will help a little... do you have your power bill from 1979, or your telephone bill from 1986? That may seem a little vague to you guys that WANT to believe that the build sheets are still there and there has just not been a genuine effort to find them. But to a corporation as big as GM, paper storage is a genuine concern. As for the computer data base... it just isnt going to be there. Fortran and Cobal is words nobody today even remembers.You are thinking in terms of modern computers and the truth is, in the 60's, the on board computer on the Apollo moon shot wasnt much better than a good pocket caluclator today. You guys need to get the historical time period in perspective. As for the phone bill or power bill, the build sheets to those cars didnt mean anymore to them than your monthly bills did to you when you were a 21 year old. think about it. Kevin

Amen

Have you guys ever heard of microfish?? Should have/ could have if gm had a clue.

If someone comes up w/ Chevy's power and phone bills from the '60s, this will really take off again! The only hing I want to say about this is...imagine the rush from Camaro (CAMAAARO!), Nova, Chevelle,Impala, and even truck owners wanting their info 'right now'....nightmare!

There is no Santa Claus
There is no Easter Bunny
There is no Bigfoot
There are no alien abductions
GM does not have build info on 1st gen Camaros

When was microfiche-ing documents invented? I am seeing patents starting in the mid 70s. That wont help late 60s cars.

What a post. For those of you in disbelief of the lost data, may I offer some consolation...

When I got my 69 Impala (uhuh yeah I know not a Camaro...BUT the same documentation issue exists) I had the name of the guy I bought it from, and that's it. No build sheet, no protecto plate, no invoice, no nothing.

Today I have the complete history of the car, in fact the only thing I do not have is the original dealer, because I did not get an MSO with my title searches.

I can verify my car is 100% original becuase I rolled up my sleeves and recorded every single part number, every single casting number, every single date code, and photographed it all, and compiled it into 30 pages of documentation proving out it is 100% original and correct, including the options (because remember, in many cases to have one option meant you had to have others...so it ALL has to be there to be right). I have managed to get letters from prvious owners stating what they remember which confirms what I have found, and you know what? That 30 pages in my mind is BETTER than the build sheet, POP etc...becuase those documents only reflect what it left the factory with. My documents reflect what it has today, which happens to be 100% correct except the water pump, starter, tires and exhaust. As a matter of fact if you go far enough into decoding you'll know your car's history without receipts...you'll know what parts got changed, when, and that will lead you to other things about the car. It never ends.

My point is, after I licked my wounds and got over the fact that EVEN if they ever did find anything, which they probably won't, but even if they did it would not be complete for every car made, it might be a scrap here and a scrap there for random cars, not at all catalogued, not at all searchable, and IF they did find such a thing it would only be because it accidently didn't get tossed...and the truth is there are no accidental documents out there. So, forget them...but get proactive by rolling up your sleeves, doing your own research, like I did!

...and I should add also for those who say "that's great, but people can buy NOS parts that are correct"...yep they can. But in my case anyway, for someone to go through the car and make every part correct, every dat code correct, would cost well beyond what the car is worth in time and effort, so it's fairly reliable to be accurate. Same goes for most of you Camaro guys unless you are trying to document a COPO or Yenko or something like that!

Get to it...don't let GM's lack of documents get in your way to enjoying your ride!

Kevin
my family had two microfish readers in 1970 that we used to research our family history . . .

Don't know where you got your info from, but microfish has been around for a long time . . .

I used a patent search website and found patents for microfiche readers and improvements to the capture process from 1973 to 1975. I am not sure when corporatations adopted the practice of transferring docs to fiche. I used to do exactly that in 1978, so I know it was around then in a corporation (retail store). Even if it was invented prior to 1968, corporations might not have embraced it quickly. And since there was a decent price tag for fiche-ing, not all reports were fiched, mostly financial ones that had to be kept for 7 years for audit purposes. Of course this is all speculation on my part, we need a GM employee that used to work in IT to say for sure.

My mom started doing research in 1956 using microfilm. They could have used mirofilm to preserve records. My mom started using microfish in the EARLY 60s when they came out. . . Census records were microfilmed and fished for preservation. We had two microfish (or film) readers at our house as I mentioned beginning in 1970.

I am not saying that GM did it, nor that most companies used this process . . .
but it is too bad they didn't. The technology was available.

It is just most people talk about how hard it would be to preserve millions of papers and how much room it would take to preserve . . . or technology wasn't available . . . bull crap.

this would not be the case . . . all they would have to do is use microfilm or microfish to preserve the records and it wouldn't have taken up much space at all . . .

My mom started doing research in 1956 using microfilm. They could have used mirofilm to preserve records. My mom started using microfish in the EARLY 60s when they came out. . . Census records were microfilmed and fished for preservation. We had two microfish (or film) readers at our house as I mentioned beginning in 1970.

I am not saying that GM did it, nor that most companies used this process . . .
but it is too bad they didn't. The technology was available.

It is just most people talk about how hard it would be to preserve millions of papers and how much room it would take to preserve . . . or technology wasn't available . . . bull crap.

this would not be the case . . . all they would have to do is use microfilm or microfish to preserve the records and it wouldn't have taken up much space at all . . .

Again, as posted many times before in prior threads on this subject, GM used microfilm/microfiche in the 60's to archive Engineering drawings and other key business records (there were no scanners in that era of IBM keypunch cards for mainframe computer input), but there was NO BUSINESS REASON to spend the time and money to maintain microfiche records of the individual build specifications of MILLIONS of cars and trucks every year. Nobody cared, nobody needed that data, and it wasn't tax-related. It's as simple as that.
:beers:

I knew a guy who knew someone that lived in Michigan that said he saw a pile of build sheets being thrown away at the Tech Center.

I think he was a janitor. They usually know everything.

So if he said he saw it it must be true because those other guys couldn't find any either

John
I had never read your previous posts about that . . . that is really sad that they didn't bother to do it . . .

My dad was an ibm data processor in the 60s and 70s for an oil company in california . . . I used to play with the punch cards all the time when I was a kid . . .

I would think that GM new that the interest in these cars would be around . . . heck my dad had a 32 ford coupe and so did his cousin and they cruised in the 50s all the time . . . it's not like interest in cars hadn't already begun at least 10 years earlier . . .

seems that it wouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to figure that this info could've been useful in the future . . .
IMHO

CFunk, KevinW, and who ever else is tired of this topic. If you don't like the topic, quit reading it! If you don't have anything helpful to say, don't say anything. This is a legitimate topic, if it bothers you, just move on. Mike

You are thinking in terms of modern computers and the truth is, in the 60's, the on board computer on the Apollo moon shot wasnt much better than a good pocket caluclator today.

Don't get that one started or we'll have the whole "Did we or did we not really land on the moon" topic in here too! :D

Wait a minute, here is your answer. See this guy

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/69-70-chevelle-camaro-impala-corvette-full-custom-aged_W0QQitemZ4626716799QQcategoryZ34206QQrdZ1QQcm dZViewItem

IT INCLUDES EITHER 69 OR 70 (NOT BOTH) (1) CUSTOM /AGED WINDOW STICKER ,(1) CUSTOM/AGED BUILT SHEET /OR TANK STICKER ,(1)WARRANTY P.O.P. CARD,(1)CUSTOM /AGED METAL PROTECT-O-PLATE ,(1)CUSTOM / AGED PREDELIVERY SHEET ,(1) AGED GM KNOCK OUT KEY ENVELOPE ,(1) AGED AM/FM OPERATIONAL PAMPHLET ,(1) AGED WARRANTY EXPLANATION TRIFOLD.(1) AGED CUSTOM DEALER CAR INVOICE.

ALL YOU NEED TO HAVE IS THE SERIAL NUMBER OF YOUR CAR ,ALL THE OPTIONS IT HAS ,TRIM TAG INFORMATION AND STATE YOU THINK IT WAS ORIGINALLY SOLD IN ..................THATS IT !!!!!!!!! ..........I WILL SUPPLY THE REST AND MAKE THE DOCUMENT KIT LOOK UNBELIEVABLE /YOU'D SWEAR IT'S BEEN SITTING IN YOUR GLOVEBOX FOR 40 YEARS AND YOU JUST PULLED IT OUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow.

I reported this one to eBay, $10 says they'll do absolutely nothing about it.

I like how he goes on about how you can increase your car's value up to 50% by forging false documents, and at the very end it says for novelty only.

Add might as well read "let me help you shaft unsuspecting buyers, and pay me to do it with my cheap forgeries"

...and they are cheap also. Even I can see obvious errors in the simple photos posted. I think everyone here should report this one and complain, this is a new low, and from a fellow Canadian it really cheeses me off.

and from a fellow Canadian it really cheeses me off.

I always knew you Canucks where shifty folk!! :D

hehehe yeah. Thanks I needed a giggle after all that! I've got to admit though...we north of the border have enjoyed a long reputation for being polite, honest, maybe even to the point of being dull sometimes! But...I guess even with all that we still have our fair share of idiots up here. Gee, I think this is the first time anything ever posted on this site has ever got me fired up!