Reply to JOHNV.
I assume you've organized yours by Zone. CERTAINLY!
They are alphabetical WITHIN the Zone, so if you haven't sorted by Zone that would explain the discrepancy. DEFINITELY!
Since yours would be skewed to the later Models, you would certainly start to see some corruption as Dealerships changed hands and names. Also, brand new Dealerships that popped up after the original no. assignments would be out of sequence. But those are pretty easy to spot. I'M SURE. THE VAST MAJORITY OF MINE ARE '69 - '73.
I don't know when these codes were established. I know they were in use as early as '62.
Another reason for some out of sequencing, according to the '64 Owners Guide, PMD had 27 Zone Offices at that time. Personally, I think that Zone 26 listed at the Ultimate Site is a myth, or misread, of what should be Zone 25 Dealers. All other Zones numbering Zones 1-29 but skipping Zones 26 & 28, match to the 27 Zone Office locations identified in the '64 Guide. YEP AGAIN. I HAVE NO ZONE 26 LISTINGS.
Conceivably, when the system was set-up, perhaps there was a Zone 26 and a Zone 28, with Dealers from those Zones redistributed to adjacent Zones when PMD shut those two down. That would have had to happen prior to 1964. However, I can't prove it to be so and I really see no evidence of such a thing. Just as likely that PMD expected to add two Zones, reserved the Zone Nos., but then never established them.
So as to help pngoat, Ric mentions 310. At some point, the leading digit appears in the coding. Zone 310 is the same as Zone 10, the leading 3 had some meaning to GM but not useful to what you would like to know.
Ric, I assume you are only considering Pontiac Dealer Nos., don't try to mix in Chevy Dealers, I don't think that works. YES, PONTIAC ONLY.
It would be interesting to overlay your record with the list at Ultimate GTO. Have you tried that? SINCE I'M WAY UP HERE IN THE N.W., MOST OF MY DEALER LISTINGS ARE WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI, SO WE DON'T HAVE TOO MANY IN COMMON.
I estimate that if every no. was assigned to a Sales Outlet, across the 27 Zones from '64, there would have been approx. 15,000 assigned Dealer Nos. and about 1000 Dealer Names are identified at least partially at the Ultimate Site. I'VE READ SOMEWHERE THAT IN THE MID-LATE '60's, THERE WERE ABOUT 5500 PONTIAC DEALERS. HAVE ANYTHING TO CONFIRM THAT?.
The no. of Dealer Nos. assigned suggests to me that the Dealer Nos. were likely assigned years, perhaps decades, prior to even '64. The no. of Auto Dealership Outlets in the U.S. peaked in the '30s (about 50,000 at that time when every podunk store could sell a car I guess). Today, Pontiac has approximately 1000 Dealerships.
There is a good chance that 80% or more of the original alphabetically assigned PMD Dealership Nos. were out of business by 1964. WOW! MORE THAN I WOULD HAVE GUESSED.
Those that still remained under the same Name would still be ordered alphabetically, and it appears to be a pretty high percentage to my eye. I just looked thru the St. Louis and the Jacksonville, Fla Zones at Ultimate. Of about 23 Dealer Names listed for St. Louis, only 1 (Cochrane Pontiac) sticks out as not in alpha order. I only found 2 in the Jax list.
Ric, be sure you are accounting for things like Claude Nolan Pontiac in Jax (misspelled as Nowlan at Ultimate). It is alphabetized under Nolan, since Nolan was the guy's last name, I mentioned that in my earlier post. I HAVE WONDERED IF GM ALPHABETIZED DEALER NAMES, WHEN IT WAS A PERSONS NAME, BY THE FIRST OR LAST NAME.
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