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.