Possibly the earliest known 1969 judge?
 

I have acquired a pretty unique 1969 gto judge ram air III car with an incredibly early build date of (1 B) this is a non pattern judge as well. I’m looking for some credible knowledge and insight on what I think may be a bit special car. My limited knowledge shows that by vin number it precedes any other earliest known judge I can find on any registry’s by over a 100 sequential vins..
Brief car history
This is a one registered owner car. I purchased the car from the original owner. The car was sold new in Ontario Canada and was never more than 3 hours distance of the original selling dealer location. Included with the car was, the original dealer invoice, the protecto plates, Warrantee booklet, GM heritage certificate and latest current registration in the original owners name. I have no current intention of registering the car in my name just to keep the story alive of it being a true one registered owner car for now. The car is all original unrestored 48,000 mile survivor with the exception of one exterior repaint, that never received any repair or patch work just an exterior refresh. The jambs and inners I believe are still all original paint. It still has OG real polyglass tires on it as well. This is a bench seat 4 speed(m21) in dash tach, 3:55 posi and the car still drives like new. It still has its original lower plastic air dam and the very early ram air under hood cable slide assembly that I have never seen in person before. I’ll include pics of the cowl tag, GM doc if anyone is interested giving me their feed back on this little buggy. Thank you in
advance.

Beautiful...

Reading this thread and the link in my post #15 will help you, maybe.

http://www.forums.maxperformanceinc....d.php?t=779929

Great find on a beautiful CR Judge! Is the original spare still in the trunk and is it a blackwall?

Can you post the Protect-O-Plate?
Look for the buildsheet?

:)

The PHS would show the number for the 'Pattern Judge' along with the buildsheet. The Canadian doc doesn't look like it has it.

:)

Nice find!

Document you posted shows M20 trans. Wide Ratio.
Baltimore build

What are the dates on the wheels?

Sent from my Moto Z3 Play using Tapatalk

Just remembered that the Pattern Judge patterns would be bucket seats. This being bench it would not be a pattern Judge.


:)

I have not removed from the trunk but I have no reason to believe it’s not the original. I’ll get pictures of it when I move it from Storage again. If you like.

I’ll check out the wheel dates next time I visit it in storage.

Protecto plates pics

Where would you suggest the most likely place to find the build sheet on a Baltimore car?

Very nice car and would love to see it in person (details). What state are you in and will you be at the GTO nats in Wisconsin Dells with her?

In the unlikely event crossing bordered becomes possible without current hysteria I would love to attend.

Great car Byron

Typically - on top of the fuel tank, under the seat, under the carpet, inside the door trim panels.

Less likely - above the headliner, behind the instrument panel top pad, or rolled up in some random, forgotten location (like behind any A pillar trim).

In summary: anywhere that was built up on a remote feeder line and then conveyed in sequence to the main/final line.

K

No one has ever found a Buildsheet in a 69 GTO (or Judge) from Baltimore.
So the chances are 0.000000001 %

That is truly an incredible Judge with a storybook lineage.
Definitely a proud car to own.
Hats-Off Congratulations !
Only a handful of 1B Judges known

Appears it was kept/used on Display for a little while before they sold it.
PoP dated in mid-April which is quite a spread.
They were released for sales in USA in early'ish February

Is the original owner still alive ?
His stories and accounts from Day1 and how he came to be the buyer of the car would be extremely interesting.
Although the option content seems more like a frugal hand picked customer order , i doubt anyone would have wanted to wait 2.5 months before taking the car from the dealer if they had ordered it themself.
But i suppose a slim chance of that is possible - in Canada - if roads are still bad until mid-April. idunno

Here is the other 1B Baltimore Judge that went to Canada.

A PY member owns/or owned this car - but i forgot who that was.
They blacked out the last 3 digits so cannot say if yours is before or after this one - but they had to be very very close.
This one seems to possibly predate yours - Jan 23 Invoice
Without further VIN input from this owner, we would have to look at the PHS invoice number and invoice date - if you ever purchase PHS for your Judge - and compare which is lower invoice number.

Thank you very much for sharing your Judge with us :)

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1607965312

Neat car!

Here is some info from my collection of factory documentation on almost 500 1969 Judges and how yours fits in...

The earliest Judges by plant by trim tag date...
Atlanta, Baltimore and Fremont = 01B
Framingham and Arlington = 01C
(Pontiac home plant only began A body production in mid april)
(only about 90 of my Judges have a trim tag date, so there could likely be earlier dates)

So your car is built in the second week of January, matching the week of several other Judges I have in my listing.

As for shipping date I have 2 cars from Baltimore and one from Framingham shipped the same date as yours but none earlier
(note that Judges shipped to Canada tended to be shipped out earlier - I suspect due to extra shipping time if they were planning a synced announcement date)

As for VIN sequence you can only compare cars from the same plant (the sequential part of the VIN was for all V8 Pontiac's built in that specific plant, in the case of Baltimore they only built A bodies for Pontiac as well as many other GM brands)
I have two cars with a VIN sequence earlier than yours (one is about 250 earlier, the other 200, given that they seem to have built about 400 Pontiac V8 Abodies a day then they might of all been built within a day of each other), I also have a bunch more with VIN's slightly higher than yours (within 400) so looks like they built a bunch in that second week of January.

Lastly in terms of early non-pattern Judges...
Surprisingly most plants built some non-pattern cars right from the beginning of Judge production. I have examples from Baltimore, Framingham and Fremont of non-pattern judges on day one of Judge shipments including the earliest VIN car from Baltimore. What makes your car unique is that the other early non-pattern Judges tend to be close to pattern (addition of Hideaways or an 8 track or tinted windshield only etc), yours is quite different...bench seat, no console, no deluxe belts, no tinted glass, no remote mirror and a dash tach instead of a clock and hood tach.

Beautiful and unique survivor car!

Congrats Byron! Incredible Judge!

Don't be shy about posting pics! Would love to see as many as you're willing to post!:D

Gorgeous judge, great find. I absolutely love this with a bench seat. So unusual

OP - nice score.

BVZ:
No one has ever found a Buildsheet in a 69 GTO (or Judge) from Baltimore.

Did you mean only Judges? My ordinary '69 from Baltimore has build sheet under the rear seat tucked between springs and cushion. Tried to remove it years ago but it's very fragile and was breaking up so I left it. Still there along with the sections I did remove stored away. It's a fairly late build - 3rd week July if that matters. Just curious.
Mark O.

Any 1969 A-Body Pontiac from Baltimore
But was referencing GTO & Judge, in particular.
As far as being found inside a car.
I think one or maybe two have been shared that were the dealers copy - and given to the buyer.

You may have the 0.00001 !
If its a buildsheet , and not a manila paper trim card
Can you post a picture of the remnants ?

Yes I'll get one tonight. You may be right - was quite a few years ago and I just ASS U Me D it was the buildsheet.

BVZ - what do you say?

Looks like a build sheet to me!


:)

Cool !
Glad i installed a 1 at the end of the 0.0000001 % estimate

If you have a convertible with remote mirror and 4spd, that is your Buildsheet
And
Would make you the only person in PY History who found a Buildsheet anywhere in a 1969 A-Body from Baltimore.

If the seat isn't from a different car you have earned mighty high congratulations !
It would also be cool if a piece of it had something identifying it as from a Baltimore car too. For archeological context

BVZ, pretty sure it's the original seat. Every option you see on that scrap is/was on the car when I bought it minus the original tires and floor mats (handy mats? what are those) so would be quite a coincidence if not.

When I can I'll yank the seat and send you some pics. IIRC sheet is pretty well intact - just married to the cushion.

Still thinking maybe they started including them near the end of the '69 run. I'm guessing '70 & up Baltimore cars have them?

ps: my apologies to the OP for hijacking.

1970 Baltimore do have them
Not trying to say every owner will find one, but many of them have been found.
After that, not certain if Baltimore even built them anymore.

No Pontiac A-bodys built out of the Baltimore or Arlington plant for the '71 or 72 model year.
Lot of published websites & books are clueless about '71 production & list both as '71 Pontiac "GTO" plants.

They were never meant to be "included". Once the build was complete they had served their purpose, and were intended to be thrown out at the end of the line along with all the other extra screws on the floor, pieces of paper, coffee cups, inspection tickets, material tags, etc.

Finding a build sheet either means that (a) somebody didn't do their job, or (b) the car got built up around it in such a fashion that it was necessary to leave it where it landed.

K

Interesting. Always thought it was intentional yet oddly random as to if/where they ended up.

You reminded me of my father. In the sixties he worked at Boeing Vertol outside Philly where they were building Chinooks for Vietnam. He worked in the flight test operation and had access to the assembly area. Time to time he would bring home buckets full of assorted aircraft fasteners swept up off the floor. They would be thrown away since sorting and restocking them was not cost effective. Guys were always asking me: what's with the holes in those bolts?

Congrats what a great car!!

Rear seat floor mats.

what a car , and Canadian too, soo cool. hey i thought it was a rumor that gto judge spoiler trunk rods are different, but that phs docs says the rods are special? i figured it was just a myth?

also what is official definition of a pattern car? that is soo cool you know the stripe color, i've never seen that documented!

There are six versions of pattern cars, they are best described as the initial cars produced by PMD where they selected the options to create a desired initial image for the car.

Basically they all had the following options... judge option (of course), power steering, power disc brakes, console, soft ray on all windows, deluxe seat belts, AM radio, remote mirror, rally gauges+clock, safe-t-track (HD version except if AC).

In addition there were three transmissions possible, standard 3 speed manual, optional 4 speed manual (either manual trans car had hood tach) or automatic. Lastly you could order AC.

69 Judge
 

Very cool Judge!
I have a 69 Carousel Judge as well with a build date of January 29, 1969
Also a friend of mine 15 mins away from me has a Jan 23, 1969 Carousel Judge! Both our cars are Baltimore 4-Sd Judges!

Your Judge is also a very early non-pattern car, I’m basing that on the snippet of the first option; a rear defogger.

I'm going to guesstimate it was a Pattern+Plus .
From it being a Zone Order

69 Judge
 

Yup the Canadian cars needed them!
Mine actually is a radio Delete Judge, Id love to get a block off plate and put it back to stock as a an/fm was added along with antenna.
It’s cool that I know from Veh. History that back in 1977 our Club President Peter M was the owner and also others who are big time Pontiac guys in our sport. I don’t have the original Ram Air III in it as he raced it with a IV
My engine is a stock 69 400 with #48 heads that runs great but I will be building something for it with a little more as I have Mike Voycey’s 722 heads that flow 280cfm. So if anyone out there has a SR block or WS I would be interested, Don’t really want to touch this 400
Also hopefully the world gets back to normal some day so Norwalk can happen again!

Very Cool. John, do you or your friend have your cars registered with me by chance for the 69 Judge Registry? Off memory I do not have too many 69 Judges where a radio option was not picked. Thanks

www.69judgeregistry.com

It surprised me that when I go through my PHS listing that rear defoggers are not a popular option on Canadian cars. I suspect that word was out that they didn't really work in the winter. They were designed for condensation not frost. Since they suck air from the trunk and blow it on the rear glass they go from just useless to worse once the trunk gets wet inside from either water or snow getting in when you open it or worse when the back window started leaking and the trunk would stay wet.