[goatboy1]

Hi
I have a friend who owns a 1964 GTO Convertible
We have just read his PHS and the delivery zone and Dealer is 99 and 998
99 and 998 is Pontiac Racing Division
What does that exactly mean

Hope somebody will help with some information

Thanks Tim

[johnta1]

Can you post your PHS?

John V could probably explain it better than I could.

[Keith Seymore]

Hmm. Interesting.

UltimateGTO.com does in fact show a zone/dealer 99 998 "Pontiac Motors Racing Division".

I had never heard of it before; the '63 SD cars went to 35-997 Pontiac Motor Division Engineering.

Are there any other notations; perhaps "Tag - " and then a name?

Originally Posted by johnta1

Can you post your PHS?

John V could probably explain it better than I could.

x2

K

[goatboy1]

Hi Keith
Thanks for your interest and help
I am a totally novice
What is 63 SD cars?
Yes it does say - TAG LA CO CAR P HARRIS - on the manifest
Production instruction says - M LA GP GP -

Does that mean anything to you

Thanks Tim

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

Hmm. Interesting.

UltimateGTO.com does in fact show a zone/dealer 99 998 "Pontiac Motors Racing Division".

I had never heard of it before; the '63 SD cars went to 35-997 Pontiac Motor Division Engineering.

Are there any other notations; perhaps "Tag - " and then a name?



x2

K

[Koppster]

Hmmm, I'm still hoping John V or Keith will dig in to this deeper, interesting stuff

[bigpop]

Jim Mattison who owns PHS, Pontiac Historical Service, may be able to help decipher this. It is quite intersting, I have never seen that before. Larry B.

p.s. google PHS and give him a call,the phone # is listed.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by goatboy1

Hi Keith
Thanks for your interest and help
I am a totally novice
What is 63 SD cars?
Yes it does say - TAG LA CO CAR P HARRIS - on the manifest
Production instruction says - M LA GP GP -

Does that mean anything to you

Thanks Tim

Yes - thank you.

The 63 SD cars: "SD" stands for "Super Duty", which was the designation for Pontiac's high performance stuff. Even beyond that, there were special cars built, essentially race cars built for street use. These cars were very special low production builds, for example:

6 Pontiac Lemans coupes with 421 cubic inch engines, special transaxles and aluminum front ends
6 Pontiac Tempest wagons, same as above
14 full size Catalinas, with lightening holes cut in the frame, aluminum front ends, etc.

These cars were built (mostly) through the production process and shipped to the Engineering dealer code.

Those are the ones I was referring to.

Now - relative to the "Tag" reference: that is the notation that means someone within GM had picked the cars out ahead of time, or they were being built for someone in particular. For example, a GM employee, or marketing person would "tag" a vehicle that they wanted and it could be noted on the build information and/or invoice. The '64 Car & Driver GTO was "tagged" for Jim Wangers, for example.

Your car was apparently tagged as a company car for Mr P Harris.

The remaining production codes deal with components on the car itself, like shock codes (I believe) - John V can shed some more light on those.

K

[Keith Seymore]

A couple more thoughts:

a) Just noticed the car was a convertible: not usually the first choice for a race car (unless someone was jockeying to hit a a higher class weight breakpoint).

b) When was the car built (build or invoice date)?

c) Any other hand written or printed notations on the build sheet? Can you post a scan of the build info?

K

[John V.]

I have a copy of the PHS document for your friend's car.

It is a fairly early Pontiac Plant build.

The codes in the Production Instructions box on all '64 Pontiac Plant manifests are the Springs and Shocks codes for the build. Early year cars used a different format for the codes than late year.

I don't pretend to know what the "dealer" code 99 998 represented, but I am certain it was not exclusively the domain of any entity called "Pontiac Motors Racing Division", if in fact that was ever an actual entity within PMD. Since that decode is not attributed to a specific invoice or manifest record, I am at curious as to what information led to that conclusion.

In any event, there does not appear to be any "racing" heritage associated with the subject build.

All '64 GTOs got the same Springs, there was no heavy duty option for GTO Springs. The only "exception" was when the car was equipped with A/C as this convertible was (Sales Code 581) in which case specific Front Springs were specified and differed depending on whether the car was equipped with manual trans or auto trans.

Since this car was equipped with auto trans, it got the "M" code Front Spring set, "LA" code Rear Spring set. Early year GTOs without A/C got Spring Codes "T LA".

Shocks were code "GP GP" unless the car was equipped with the "Rally Handling Kit" option Sales Code 612 or the "Heavy Duty Springs & Shocks" option Sales Code 621, in either of these cases the early GTO codes were "GG GG" for the Heavy Duty Tempest Shocks.

I'm not positive, but I think that somehow the early codes may have been related to color codes or paint daubs associated with the specific parts.

TAG LA CO CAR P HARRIS would indicate the car was destined to be a Company Car for somebody named "P. Harris".

The code 99 998 would have been the location where the car was destined to be delivered and by my guesstimation, the "99" would have identified the Dept. or GM Div. that would have been internally billed for the asset, in other words, billed for accounting purposes.

The build reflected an "add/delete", the car was built without Sales Code 512 so that a credit was issued to reduce the original invoice amount.

Later the car was sold, as Company Cars always were and another "add/delete" accounting entry was made for "Undercoat" at $20.00 and I believe "Fla. Lic" at $7.00.

I'm not certain it reads "Fla", however, the Zone Sundry Invoice No. "17-2596" I believe is to indicate Zone 17 which was the Jacksonville, Fla Zone covering all of Fla. This Debit entry was to bill (again for accounting) incidental added costs associated with the car that were incurred while it was in service as a Company Car.

The "Undercoat" suggests to me that the car was delivered to the Jacksonville Zone by way of a Dealer who added a $20 charge for undercoating, this was pretty typical for a lot of Dealers to add as part of a Dealer prep package (and the "pure profit" kinda game playing that has always gone on in the biz) and/or may have been something that particular company exec who had use of the car asked the Dealer to do prior to delivery.

Ordinarily, I would have expected the record to have shown 17 99* if it originally went to a company employee operating out of the Jacksonville Zone.

In this case, maybe the guy was attached to some other Dept or GM Div. ("99") but working in Fla.

The "TAG LA ..." could be a typo, perhaps should have read "TAG FLA ..." or perhaps "LA" is a clue to whatever Dept. or Div. "P. HARRIS" worked for.

Could be some other "special" reason for the 99 998. But this was no race car. It was heavily optioned which is very typical of Company Car builds and all indications are that it was placed into service initially as a Company Car and likely originally registered in Fla by a GM employee as such.