[johnta1]

I'd have to look at some notes to see what the GMAC Code meant.
(211)


Mainly for accounting purposes I think?
(along with the date codes for the date of note and execution)


The PPA502xxx to the right of the date codes is useful sometimes.
The 1st P is for customer/dealer ordered (I think)
2nd P is for the plant which is P in this case (Pontiac main plant)
the A is for accounting also, list of codes somewhere in my notes.
(from BVZ I think? or John V)

Found this (from John V):
A - GMAC Wholesale Credit

I'll add that dealer in a few.


Thanks for the pics!

[John V.]

Originally Posted by johnta1

I'd have to look at some notes to see what the GMAC Code meant.
(211)


Mainly for accounting purposes I think?
(along with the date codes for the date of note and execution)


The PPA502xxx to the right of the date codes is useful sometimes.
The 1st P is for customer/dealer ordered (I think)
2nd P is for the plant which is P in this case (Pontiac main plant)
the A is for accounting also, list of codes somewhere in my notes.
(from BVZ I think? or John V)

Found this (from John V):
A - GMAC Wholesale Credit

I'll add that dealer in a few.


Thanks for the pics!

John, the GMAC Dealer Code is the code that GMAC knew the dealer by. My wife has a casual friend that is married to a guy who spent his career with GMAC, retired maybe 10-15 years ago? Anyway, I've picked his brain a couple times, I recently told him I would bring him a PHS doc for him to go over with me. Not sure when I'll see him again but will try to remember to show him a record or 2.

He explained that not all dealers qualified for GMAC wholesale credit, those that didn't would need to find their own way to finance their purchases from PMD (or whatever Div.).

Those that did got a sweetheart deal to finance their purchases. The company I worked for in the '80s and '90s used a financing plan for its dealers that was patterned after the GM model so I already had a pretty good grasp of the way it works.

Basically, the franchise agreement with PMD gave the dealer rights to purchase vehicles from PMD. The wholesale credit agreement with GMAC gave the dealer a line of credit in order to pay for the vehicles.

The basic functioning of the plan enabled PMD to be paid essentially at the moment the vehicle shipped. They were paid by GMAC. Then the dealer owed GMAC. If he sold the car quickly and paid off the note immediately, there was no interest charged. As I recall it from the company I worked for, there were tax advantages to setting up the financing scheme this way. And of course, it helped the dealer keep his costs down so he could be very competitive.

You have it right for the decoding of the Invoice No. 1st character "P" meant the car was already sold to the ordering dealer when built (no way to know if the dealer had in turn already sold it to a retail customer or if he was ordering the car for his own inventory). 1st character "Z" would indicate a car that had not initially been sold to a dealer when first shipped, it was stored in a Zone storage facility (company use cars also were in the same category but most were not to be used, they were just Zone Stock awaiting future sale to a Zone dealer). In some cases, PHS has the initial Invoice record for the VIN when it was charged to the Zone, then the record for when it was sold to a dealer. Usually though they only have the last record when it was wholesaled out of Zone Stock to a dealer.

The 3rd character "A" indicates Sales Class A, a dealer with a GMAC wholesale credit line. "B" would indicate a dealer that had to use some other credit (like his local bank). Either way, PMD was paid immediately upon shipment. There are a couple other known Sales classes but these are the main two. If you compare the Invoices for an "A" sale vs. a "B" sale, you will see some differences in the form.

For the "A" class, you will see that the "Date of Execution" of the note is the same date as the "Date Shipped". The "Date of Note" is 4 days later, which allowed for transit time. Then the "Interest From" start date was 20 days after that. This was the incentive to the dealer to sell cars quickly and pay off GMAC.

The last 6 digits of the Invoice No. were just assigned in numerical order by PMD. I believe the highest Invoice Nos. for the '70 Model Year were around 720000 as PMD unloaded the last of the unsold inventory after the '71 Model Year began.

I don't believe the Invoice Nos. match to the total no. of vehicles produced and sold during a given Model Year. I think Invoice Nos. may have been issued for certain reasons that didn't involve a new vehicle, only explanation for why vehicle production nos. won't exactly match Invoice Nos. for a given Model Year.

The blacked out boxes for the costs, key codes, etc. indicates this record came direct from PMD when they used to supply these for free. That info was still considered "sensitive" I guess so they blacked it out.

Today, PHS will sell you the record without blacking out that information.