[north]

The lower price for the 400 HO wasn't related to ordering the ram air option. The price of the 400 HO option had 8 different prices for the 1969 model and none relate to the ram air option! (same situation for the option price of the regular 400 which was always exactly $76.88 less than the 400 HO).

The following will probably make your head spin, it did mine when I was figuring all this out!

Three factors impacted the price of the 400 HO, time of manufacture, transmission choice, and bodystyle.

During the 69 model run there are 5 periods of different pricing and/or content on the Firebirds. Of these 5 periods three of them affected the price of the 400 HO option. On Dec 5th all engine option prices were adjusted slightly, in the case of the 400 and 400HO it was a slight increase. From there the prices on all the three 400 engine options changed again on March 29th to reflect the reduction in standard equipment on the base Firebird. This in effect increased the price of these engine options (base Firebird tire was downgraded so 400 options had to reflect the greater step up cost to the F70 redline for example).

This third time period also created a new price difference between the three 400 options on coupes versus convertibles (because drip moldings were no longer standard on base cars but 400 optioned cars had drip moldings.

The other price factor was transmission. In effect the 400 and 400 HO option prices included the step up from the standard light duty column shift M12 to the HD floor shift 3 speed M13. This tranny was $84.26 when ordered on base engine Firebirds so if you ordered a 4 speed or a M40 with a 400 or 400 HO option the price of the engine option was lowered by exactly the same $84.26 so you wouldn't in effect be double charged for the transmission option.

To make some sense of it here is the price chart for a 400 option with all those variables. Adding $76.88 to any of these numbers will give you the exact cost of a 400 HO option in each case.

.............................................Coupe .................................Convert
.............................................3spd. ......4spd-auto.......3spd.......4spd-auto
up to Dec 4.................358.09....273.83...............3 58.09....273.83
dec 5-mar 29..............377.05....292.79...............377 .05.....292.79
march 30 +..................431.81......347.56............. ...416.01......331.76

This silliness spread to the TA option which also had 8 possible prices.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Good Gracious !

The 2 RA cars i have invoices for are dated March 19 and March 25
They made it under the wire just in time to avoid that March 29 increase.

An oddball 400 HO invoiced March 21 where the HO is 424.44
Another dated March 31 @ 424.44
RAJ's car was Invoiced June 30 @ 408.64
They went up-down-and all around

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Turns out i did have info on the 69 Bird Carbs ... forgot all about it.

I don't know if the T-42 (RA) memo would have applied to the 69 TA Ram3 cars, or at least may not have applied all the way through the end of production on them.
This data probably preceded TA production.

[north]

In my PHS collection of 69 Fbirds I have a few I just can't figure out price wise. I think it relates to cars where the invoice is not the only one. It gets unstructured when cars (company cars etc) are reinvoiced months later. There are also a few like you mention that have option prices that do not match any documented price list. The dates I use to separate the 5 price periods are approximate based on invoices. The revised price lists have an official effective date but the prices on the invoices do not follow exactly. Perhaps the pricing dates were related to completion of production, actual shipping date or some other point we can't identify from here and now.

For what it's worth here are the 5 periods that saw pricing changes in 69 firebirds (i have official price lists for all except the dec 5th revision)...

1...Start of production to Dec 4th 1968

2...December 5th - to December 31st 1968 - changes to engine option pricing only (also affected pricing of some other engines in GP, Fullsize and Tempest-LeMans but not GTO (I do not have an official document on this change but it clearly happened effective the first week of december, confirmed by dozens of invoices). Oddly all the firebird engines increased a few bucks except the 350 2bbl which actually decreased 29 cents, go figure. Also the decor group option price increased because dual horns were added to the package.

3...Jan 1st to March 29th 1969 - base price of all Pontiac's increased by $17 to incorporate the inclusion of headrests which previous to jan 1st was a mandatory option on all cars at $16.85. no other price changes were affected.

The last two periods were Firebird only changes...

4...Mar 30- Sept 17th 1969 - A base price reduction was implemented on all firebirds but this was accomplished by de-contenting the cars... wide oval tires, space saver, scalp (drip) moldings, glove box lamp, courtesy lamp all become extra cost. This impacted the cost of the 3 400 engine options because they had F70 wideoval redlines which now cost more (relative to the new base tire) and the 400 options also included the scalp moldings (on hardtops, hence now a price difference between coupes and hardtops)

5...sept 18th 1969 to end of production - the 69 Firebirds that were produced after the end of normal 1969 Pontiac production saw price increases in their base price and on select options including the TA option but not any of the engine option pricing.