[John V.]

The Window Sticker reproductions are not real accurate, but apparently PHS does have a better list of Dealers than what has been compiled at the Ultimate site.

You might contact them to see if they will divulge the name without you having to buy the repro from them.

When the Dealer Nos. were 1st assigned, they were assigned in alphabetical order within each Zone. The order became corrupted in time as Dealerships changed hands and were renamed without changing the Dealer No. But in '64/'65, for the most part the Dealer Nos. remained in alphabetical sequence.

If the Dealership used the full name of the Owner, such as Ed Smith Pontiac, it would be alphabetized by last name.

Zone 10 is the Chicago, Ill. Zone

Example (first one isn't found at the Ultimate site)

10-208 Haggerty Pontiac in Villa Park, Ill falls alphabetically after
10-199 Grossinger Pontiac in Chicago, Ill

as it should.

Alphabetically, 10-185 would fall between

10-163 Peter Epsteen Pontiac in Skokie, Ill and Grossinger Pontiac.

Looking at the Ultimate site, ignore Wiele Motor Co. and Bert Adams Pontiac. Alphabetically these two are out of sequence, either the listings are wrong or these were not the Dealership names when the Dealer Nos. were originally assigned.

10-185 was assigned to a Dealership with a name alphabetically starting with an E, F, or G. FWIW, there was a Pontiac Dealership on Golf Rd. in Schaumburg that I think was named something like Franklin-Sullivan Pontiac (somebody remember it?). That would be one possibility! It changed hands in the '80s and was renamed. Unfortunately, that doesn't help you a lot.

Only other Zone 10 Dealer I can add is:

10-261 was Jones Buick-Pontiac in Pontiac, Ill.

If you are wondering where you can find this info, Dealer names are culled from various PHS records. In '64, the Fremont Plant docs show the Dealer name and no. (although Fremont cars won't likely have been shipped to a Chicago area Dealer) '65 Billing History Card records don't show the Dealer name, but Invoice records from '69 up show the Dealer name & no.

You might have some luck asking your question in the later model GTO & Firebird Forums, guys with '69 up cars and PHS records will be able to check for the Dealer name & no.

[pngoat]

jarhead and John V. Thank you for your responses. I will check the later model GTO and Firebird forums.

[Transamric]

I rarely ever have contradictory info to what John posts, but this time I do. At least in part. The Database of Dealer Codes I've assembled, consists primarily of dealers who were in business fron 1967 to '76. So perhaps that is the reason for my different observations. The "corruption" of the original plan may have been well advanced. But it appears we are making too much of the possibility that dealerships were numbered in any kind of logical order. Of the 339 dealers on my list, from all Zones around the country, there is no order to be seen, alphabetically or otherwise. As has been stated, dealerships came & went with sometimes surprising frequency, or again as has been mentioned, names were changed without the code neccessarily being changed. So to look specifically for an "F" or "G" dealer name may be limiting the scope of the search too much.
The closest to 310-185 in my list is 310-197, Greenway Pontiac-Olds. INC. in Morris IL. (12-71), so at least at that time, the possibility of an "F" or "G" still looks plausible. I record every date with the dealerships info to try & see if eventually I can build a rough aproximation of how long a particular dealer was in business. Wishful thinking I'm sure, since I primarily focus on '67-76 Firebird & '69-72 GTO.

[John V.]

Hi Ric, glad you've chimed in. No real contradiction.

I assume you've organized yours by Zone.

They are alphabetical WITHIN the Zone, so if you haven't sorted by Zone that would explain the discrepancy.

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 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.

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.

It would be interesting to overlay your record with the list at Ultimate GTO. Have you tried that?

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.

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.

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.

Check it out and see if you still disagree.

BTW, Greenway Pontiac-Olds is not listed at Ultimate, so that ever so slightly narrows down the window for pngoat.

I'm surprised nobody chimed in about that Dealer in Schaumburg. I think there is still a Pontiac Dealer there, wish I could remember the old name.

[ReelFun]

I checked my PHS and my dealer code is"16 575" I know the zone is for parts of NC and SC but I can't find the dealer name. Its not listed on the Ultimate GTO site. Anybody have a clue?

[Transamric]

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.