Judge versus non-Judge buyer preferences
 

As my 69 GTO PHS collection closes in on 1,250 (565 of which are Judges) I noticed some interesting patterns on the preferences of Judge versus non-Judge buyers:

Bench seat: 1.9% of Judges (J) and 5.9% of non-Judges (NJ)
(probably related to much more automatic non Judges)
Air conditioning: 11.3% vs 41.4%
(obviously different buyer demographics)
3spd manual: 4.1% vs 4.1%
(this was a bit surprising)
M20 manual 4 spd: 61.6% vs 31.2%
M21 manual 4 spd: 11.7% vs 6.7%
Turbo hydramatic: 22.7% vs 58.0%
(as I expected)
column shift (only offered w/ th400): 1.8% vs 7.0%
(this could be with bench or buckets)
Tire options (colors for Judge, size or FG for non-judge): 28.1% vs 26.3%
(coincidentally about the same for different reasons)
Safe-T-Track: 77.9% vs 48.5%
Two Tone paint (on Hardtop only): 0.2% vs 1.3%
Special paint (not counting CR on Judges): 0.9% vs 1.3%
Carousel Red Paint: 68.1% vs 2.4%
Cordova Top (on Hardtop only): 8.1% vs 55.0%

Interesting stats, thanks for sharing. Of course, the Judge numbers are heavily skewed by the pattern Judges.

Cool factoids from a large private database.
Thanks for sharing north .

Good point about the pattern Judges. Btw, in my collection they represent 23% of the Judges.

On the pattern cars:
I have 130: 99 manuals and 31 automatics.
Parchment cars are 24 manual to 19 auto and black interior cars are 75 to 12 which matches my recollection from my younger days that parchment judges were automatics.

Have any Framington PHS pattern Judges?

I have 2 with the same pattern number, within 40 numbers on the VINs? (1 is Parchment other Black interior)

I have about 60 or so Pattern Judge PHS with about 5 or so that do not have PHS for, just what was told they were pattern Judge.

:confused:

I have 38 pattern judges from Framingham. Interestingly Framingham has the most pattern judges as a percent of all judges, over 50%.

Any duplicate numbers in Framington?

Fremont has the only ones that are higher than 100 that I have.


:)

What duplicate numbers are you referring to? If the dealer order number is what you meant: Framingham built pattern judges-lowest is 17, highest is 119, three different instances of two cars having same order number.

Yes , the order numbers.
Have been waiting to see any with duplicates in same zone.

And any with single digit 00x
From any plant.

Here goes the Dealer Order Number (DON) data for pattern cars:
(lowest-highest-duplicate doubles-duplicate triples)
A: 17-81-4-0
B: 18-87-2-3
G: 17-119-2-0
R: 19-89-1-0
Z: 17-119-3-0

No single digit DON's
Interesting that 3 plants share the lowest DON and two share the highest DON, is that just a coincidence?
Another point of interest is that the DON's do not follow a pattern of rising with the VIN sequence rising. I'd guess the orders were placed mostly before production began and the cars were not built in order of the DON's.
Many DON's repeat across several plants

For statistical context I have about 1 in 12 Judges built in this listing, so it is getting to be statistically relevant.

Thanks, North!
As BVZ said, the order numbers.

Of the duplicates, are they a Parchment and a Black by any chance for the same number?

:confused:

I had to leave my computer with the data but next week I will revisit to see if cars with the same DON are the same pattern version (interior, trans, AC), they aren't to the same dealer and they are not necessarily close to each other in VIN numbers.

I glanced quickly on my way out at two sets of cars that had the same DON's and one set was identical but the other were different trans and interior color cars.

When you do have the chance to compare again -
Any in the same Zone with matching order numbers would be the interloper .

I think you potentially boiled it down to accepting that the order numbers were a counting reference per each Zone.

It would seem that way. Curious why they all start in the high teens. Maybe each zone places a certain number of zone orders to build inventory at the start of the model year. So that by January each zone had placed a dozen or so orders?

Or did the order numbers start on Jan 1st rather than at the start of the model year. Given that I never see zone ordered cars almost entirely except the pattern judges it’s more likely the order numbers start with the model year.

I don't think they would have started accepting orders on The Judge until the build plans and/or Ram Air system was completed .
Either of those would have been late into 68.
.
The Pattern Judge order numbers are exclusive to Pattern Judges.

No idea on the lowest numbers being in upper teens.
Only wild wild guesses that don't carry any real merit.

There have been a few Pattern Judges found with secondary invoice billings.
Were initially used for something within a Zone for several months.
Then re-billed to a dealer at a small discount.
Maybe driven by vested Zone guys , or used at displays ..... anything.

Those particular examples lose their "Unique Pattern Order Number" when they get the secondary billing invoice.

There is a wild wild chance that the first certain number of the cars in each zone were used the same way as the secondary billing cars we have found.
But seems like we would have uncovered more than just a few if each zone received umpteen of them.
John shows 27 Zones x umpteen = over 300 cars .

So it can't be proven now , if ever.

Edit - the Zone arrangement on these Order Numbers may be more classified into Zone Regions versus each actual Zone (27)
I just don't know

If we exclude 17 cars from each Zone , its about 75- 80 cars per Zone.
2,000 {Delorean version} ÷ 27 = 74 cars avg.
1,000 {Memo version} ÷ 27 = 37 cars avg.
This is just an alternate grain of salt calculation.

I think we need to determine how many actual Zone Numbers we can find on these Zone Order Numbers.
Then we might make a little progress.
ALL of my files are trapped.

Some added work:

I looked at the Zone codes for all the cars with matching DON's (by assembly plant). There were 14 instances across the five plants that had two or three cars with the same DON, in no cases were there matching DON's from the same zone. Which makes sense if each zone issued sequential special DON's for pattern Judges. BTW, there is no pattern of same DON's having the same options (trim color, trans or AC).

BTW2, here is a list of the zones that received cars from each plant (some overlaps):

Atlanta: 09, 16 through 21
Baltimore: 01 through 19, 21, 24, 29 plus a 38 (Canada), and 60 (sold to the Baltimore assembly plant, probably for a forensic audit?)
Framingham: 01 through 08, 11, 12, 16, 29
Pontiac: (no pattern cars) 01-12, 15 through 19, 29
Arlington: 11 trough 15, 17 through 22, 24 and 27
Fremont: 13, 15, 21 through 25, 27

My next step will be to resort my spreadsheet by zone then DON. Given my nonexistent computer skills I'll make a copy in case I mess up the file!

Here is a look at the special DON's and regular DON's by zone:

Zone (zone Area) / plants / special pattern DON's / reg DON info

1 (MA, ME, NH, VT) / 29, 54, 57, 64, 65 / BGP / 9223 to 98841
2 (CT, NE NY, MA) / 46, 51, 70, 74, 76, 119 / BGP / 16107 to 93927
3 (PA, NJ, DE) / 19, 34, 35 40, 49, 55, 55, 67, 78 / BGP / 11135 to 99042
4 (MD, VA, PA, DC) / 45, 46, 51 52, 59 / BP / 2470 to 93502
5 (western NY) / none / BGP / 2643 to 58845
6 (western PA) / 44, 46 / BGP / 16280 to 80379
7 (MI, IN, OH) / 27, 40, 52 / BGP / 3428 to 88861
8 (OH, MS) / 18, 41, 58 / ABGP / 2961 to 57659
9 (IN, KY, OH, WV, MI) / 21, 24, 27, 41, 42 54, 56, 66 / ABP / 1911 to 88316
10 (IL, IA, IN, MI, MA) / 32, 59, 73, 77 / BPR / 4034 to 90338
11 (WI) / none / BPR / 4202 to 80464
12 (MO, IN, IL, GA) / 21, 49, 59, 61, 64 / BGR / 4372 to 96139
13 (MO, KS) / 39, 41, 45 / BRZ / 7433 to 74281
14 (IA, NE) / 22, 33 / BR / 12349 to 85869
15 (MN, WI, MT / 22, 31 / BRZ / 19173 to 92386
16 (NC, SC, WV, TN, MN, LA / 43, 62 / ABGP / 2627 to 98495
17 (FL, GA, TN / 20, 29, 42, 43, 56, 58 / ABP / 4172 to 96918
18 (GA, AL, TX, TN) / 29, 35, 47, 51, 61, 71, 81 / ABPR / 10138 to 78798
19 (MS, LA, TN, AL, AR, KY, WI) / 17, 27 / ABPR / 6696 to 89381
20 (TX, OK, AR) / 17, 31, 45, 47 / AR / 10633 to 85430
21 (TX, CA) / 33, 35, 55, 72 / ABRZ / 19122 to 95506
22 (TX, LA) / 51 / ARZ / 24345 to 89506
23 (CA, NV) / 17, 45, 71, 86 / Z / 30427 to 92885
24 (CA, AZ, NV) / 17, 19, 51, 62, 80, 89, 103, 106, 118, 119 / RZ / 10437 to 83914
25 (WA, OR, AK, MT, ID) / 26, 32, 45, 61, 62, 63 / Z / 29641 to 93845
27 (CO, UT, NM, NE, WY, TX) / 34, 37 / RZ / 11314 to 96198
28 nothing
29 (NJ, NY) / 17, 36, 58, 61, 71) / BGP / 9710 to 96421
38 (canada) / none / B / 001 (there are a lot of Canadian cars (all B or P plant) only this one had a zone number
60 (baltimore3 ??) / this car is a non-pattern judge,

other Pattern Judges (zone number not readable but have special DON's)
27 (Z), 44 (G), 86 (Z), 87 (B), 144 (Z)

I also have three other pattern Judges (correct options and aprox build date by VIN) with no zone that have blank DON box. These three look like they are later second invoices because they have late (apr, july, nov 69) invoice dates

I also have five more pattern judges (correct options and aprox build date by VIN) but with regular DON's and later invoice date). Probably also second invoices.

Lastly I have two Judges that are pattern optioned but VIN indicates too late to be pattern car, regular DON's. Probably just cars coincidently ordered later with same options or ordered as pattern cars but missed the cut off dates to be processed as pattern cars.

Some observations:

No duplicate Pattern DON's from same zone even regardless of plant of assembly.

Regular DON's from each zone seem to follow a regular sequential pattern as the year progresses regardless of which plant the car was built in.

Interesting how most zones up with regular DON's just under 100,000 at the end of the run but they seem to start at a different number from each other. I wonder if it is because they adjusted the starting number so that the target number for each zone manager was 100,000?

Apart from the pattern cars the regular zone versus dealer (Z versus P in the invoice number prefix) ordered cars seemed to follow the regular sequential order of DON's

If you guesstimate the total number of DON's (say 75,000 times 28 zones you get an odd number, a bit over 2,100,000. I say odd because the number is way too high to be just Pontiac (about 870,000 cars that year) but way too low to be all GM cars (which were about 5,000,000 that year). Hmmm.

So these are not all Pattern Car samples ?
Can see the PMD samples are not.
Not sure what the others actually represent.

I'm interested in debunking either Deloreans 2,000 approx cars , or the Memo 1,000 approx cars.
They can't both be right.
I'm leaning way to the 2,000 figure as being the closer to correct. Always have.

If you can post a sample of each variation - I should be able to determine their place.

#1 - 3 cars with apparent second billing and No Order Number
#2 - 5 cars with apparent second billing and Regular Order Numbers

Initially will say the 3 cars were discounted use cars.
With the vague nondescript discount code in left corner of invoice

The 5 cars most likely were cars built that didn't have a dealer in waiting.
More of general zone inventory type for any dealer , semi left overs.
No discount code.

02B was the cut off basically , 02C was when the open orders started being built.
But still Orange Only at that point.

Would be interesting to see the samples regardless.
Have been away from invoice studies for quite a few years now.

The Internal Memo was something to the effect of Judge Sales or Judge Production month to month on into maybe April or May .
Been years since I last saw it.

For the list of zones serviced by each plant I am referring to all my GTO invoices. I was just getting a feel of how many zones could be ordering cars from more than one plant.

As for the 2,000 versus 1,000 the best indicator is that I have 131 pattern cars out of 566 judges or 23%. 23% of 6,833 Judges built equals 1,581, unsatisfactorily halfway between the two claimed numbers. My guess is both are wrong and the actual number is around 1,500. Maybe the 1,000 and 2,000 numbers were what was planned or expected at different moments in the process of launching the Judge but in the end the actual number was simply what dealers ordered in the timeframe that Pontiac allotted for distribution of the pattern cars. It works out to about 1 pattern car for every other dealership, not indicative of it being as successful as they hoped.

Unfortunately, I deleted the modified copy of my spreadsheet already (I'm always afraid to confuse it with the original and post new cars on the wrong list). I'll create a new one later this week and post examples of the invoices you refer to here.

I remember the Memo you are referring to but I can't recall where I saw it? Here on the site somewhere or in one of the GTO books printed over the years?

The gist of it was that Judges were running at 20% of GTO production in those months. Not sure if that was considered a success or failure.

If we determine that Pattern Cars went to 27-28 different zones ,,,
And each zone count could range the count starting at 17 and going as high as 119

That is a "high side" base number of 102 per Zone
Multiply by 27 or 28
2754 // 2856 Patterns - full high side (not the best reasonable equation)

That's why I'm interested breaking down how many zones actually got Pattern Cars.
And highest order number in each zone.
We can come up with varying reasonable equations after that.

2,000 was a number Delorean threw out as the initial plan - as a guest speaker at a POCI convention in the mid to late 80s. approx 20 years after the fact.
That had been the staple number for decades.

About 5-6-7 years ago Mike Noun found an internal memo in the Pontiac Museum archives from one exec to some other execs with supposed production or sales numbers month to month.
John likely has the memo in his files.
I would definitely have it but my files are currently crashed.
Some agreed 1,000 Patterns was more reasonable.
Memos are not always precise measurements, can be done on the fly or without full diligence.

Mike posted it on here , somewhere .
It was only about Judges.

If you see my big post today I do list the DON's for each zone. There is a large variance in the number of total GTO's per zone and Judges and especially pattern Judges (in two zones I have no pattern judges ordered).

[QUOTE=north;6586488]

Zone (zone Area) / plants / special pattern DON's / reg DON info

I just realized I mixed up the header at the top of the list of the zones, below is the corrected sequence:

Zone (zone Area) / special pattern DON's / assembly plants / reg DON info

In hindsight I put too much data in that one table.

We can come up with an absolute "minimum number" of Pattern Cars equation --
-- if we have those above parameters per Zone.
Not an exact number , but a bare minimum number.

I looked at it a little but it was too congested.
Only concerned with Pattern Cars.
Selfish , I know .:o

True, assuming all special DON's were used and no orders were cancelled before shipment ;-)

We can do a good number that at least you and I can feel is acceptable overall .
As a "minimum range" .

If Zone 12 highest Pattern is 62 , run with that.
Zone 23 highest 112 , run with it
etc...

Edit - of course deduct 17 from each count.


But , it's your data and your time.
And you don't owe us anything at all.
But it would be semi-monumental .
A lot of us have been trying to crack it somehow for almost 20 years. lol

Edit #2 - Most everybody gave up on it years ago though.

I took the highest number from each zone and deducted 16 from each and that gives me about 1,150. If I give each zone with none or only one or two examples a minimum of 30 it bumps the number to about 1,250. If you add another ten percent for missing higher DON’s in each zone you end up at 1,375. Then add 10% for Canadian market cars you are 1,550. Roughly matching my pattern to total judge invoices calculations.

Seems to me that the intent of the pattern cars was to establish a different image for the judge as compared to regular GTO’s. They wanted to cater to a younger more performance image conscious buyer almost like it was a separate model from the GTO.

I suspect they were worried that dealers left to their own habits would dilute the initial impact if they ordered too many judges in calmer colors, with things like vinyl tops, bench seats and other options that blunted the special nature of the car.

It was probably a wise decision as the judge could have been seen as just a GTO with a spoiler option rather than a distinct and differently targeted car.

1150 bare minimum with supporting documented data is great progress .
1550 approximation isn't an unfair number with that.

You were the one that proposed the Pattern Order Numbers were potentially a count of cars per Zone.
That was progress.
Determining there were no repeating interlopers in a given Zone adds solidity for sure.
Heavy progress.

If you have a chance to list each Zone - with it's highest Pattern Number currently on file ,,,,
John can check his files for any higher Pattern Numbers or any Zone you don't have a sample for.
And John and I can keep our eyes open for further cars that develop.

In some cases just one or two cars could bump the numbers considerably .
Thanks North !

Categorizing them by Plant isn't as beneficial as by Zone. (them = Pattern Cars)
The Judge Registry has them by Plant , but doesn't distinguish Pattern Cars in every example or have Body Dates for every example. Last time I looked.

I put the pattern # in the comments section. I put the PHS shipped date but sometimes don't have the cowl tag data to add. :(


I might try and add a dealer zone section. Thought of adding the zone office # also.


:)

“If you have a chance to list each Zone - with it's highest Pattern Number currently on file ,,,,
John can check his files for any higher Pattern Numbers or any Zone you don't have a sample for.
And John and I can keep our eyes open for further cars that develop.”

My big post yesterday lists every pattern Judge DON by zone.

I'll try to drill into that posting and see if I can dissect it all out.
Was too cluster-stuffed at first glances.

01 - 29, 54, 57, 64, 65
02 - 46, 51, 70, 74, 76, 119
03 - 19, 34, 35 40, 49, 55, 55, 67, 78
04 - 45, 46, 51 52, 59
05 -
06 - 44, 46
07 - 27, 40, 52
08 - 18, 41, 58
09 - 21, 24, 27, 41, 42 54, 56, 66
10 - 32, 59, 73, 77
11 -
12 - 21, 49, 59, 61, 64
13 - 39, 41, 45
14 - 22, 33
15 - 22, 31
16 - 43, 62
17 - 20, 29, 42, 43, 56, 58
18 - 29, 35, 47, 51, 61, 71, 81
19 - 17, 27
20 - 17, 31, 45, 47
21 - 33, 35, 55, 72
22 - 51
23 - 17, 45, 71, 86
24 - 17, 19, 51, 62, 80, 89, 103, 106, 118, 119
25 - 26, 32, 45, 61, 62, 63
27 - 34, 37
28 -
29 -17, 36, 58, 61, 71


1150 samples by subtracting 16 from the highest numbers from each Zone.
And adding those totals.


As per PY member North :
I took the highest number from each zone and deducted 16 from each and that gives me about 1,150.
If I give each zone with none or only one or two examples a minimum of 30 it bumps the number to about 1,250.
If you add another ten percent for missing higher DON’s in each zone you end up at 1,375.
Then add 10% for Canadian market cars you are 1,550.
Roughly matching my pattern to total judge invoices calculations.

1550 approx estimate currently .

Exactly! Thanks!

Here's a page I made:


Pattern Judge #'s


:)

Small detail on yours John
Atlanta car - Brushy Mtn is in Hickory NC , not SC.

There is another car that sold new in Burlington NC , at GAA auction in past year.
Think it was Pattern also. Will check for it.

I don't remember the two 01B cars you have listed.
At one point there was only one 1B - that went to Canada - not exact Pattern.

Don't remember any 02C Patterns before - and you have three listed.
Mine is 02C Baltimore Non-Pattern from Mt.Airy NC

There is an 01D Fremont Non-Pattern that went to a dealer near Hollywood.
But I forgot dealer name.
Had Redlines , Ext Tips , Non-Posi axle

I thought it was kind of strange I have only 4 Arlington pattern cars.
Most people must be hiding them or they were used up.


:D

That GAA website is a little tough to drill into its history.
Did find a different example that neither of you list though.

PHS for Car # 85 from Zone 23 , Fremont

Going to start a new thread later in The Judge section.
Maybe this weekend.
Something like - Calling all 69 Pattern Cars

And do a combined list of the "Zone / Car numbers" from both of your lists.
See if can round up some more cars/numbers

Found it , not a Pattern Car.
Later built ++ options - non posi
For your other records.