Quote:
Originally Posted by The Boss
Brian,
Any GTO's built at any of the plants other than Pontiac? and any of the birds built anywhere other than Lordstown?
Not sure how the engines would have made it there in such a tight time frame.
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Boss:
You mean the first week or ever? Both the FB and GTO RAII were made at multiple plants, but you may be right if you meant the first week. Never have seen anything but Lordstown and Pontiac for cars billed the first week. Granted I have only seen a small percentage of the RAII billing sheets.
Timing has been a mystery for me since I first researched these. The 5/7/68 document is the earliest dated official Pontiac document I have ever seen on the RAII with prices, but there is no way that is enough time to take orders, build and ship by 5/20/68.
Back in the RAII long thread – Cammer-6 showed a June dated bulletin on the FB pricing that stated the RAII price change went into effect 4/29/68. Never seen any actual April dated document that backed that up. (Or it could have been an internal date). Obviously the actual price change did not occur in April as your car is a May RAI car and billed as a RAI.
Now it may be possible the first week cars were built as pilot cars for stock and not actually dealer ordered cars or maybe only certain dealers were informed and put orders in early?
In your RAII’s case, Knafel would definitely be one that could have got an order through.
It would be interesting to see how many were built the first week then each week after.
Robert – Welcome - I can only guess from the posts and name that you own the black RAII conv’t. In my opinion the two largest events that have done the most to publicize the RAII have to be Jim Mino’s racing exploits and the press that car has received.