[SWEETMUSCLE]

Bob hit it right on the money ! My car was built 2nd week of january low mile original paint car with the blue stripes -no glovebox emblem ---Bob thanks for that good information ! Can my car be one of the first 100 Fremont (pattern) judges built ?

[SWEETJUDGE]

The info of options seems correct. My early Judge Late Jan build date, HAS all 68 engine codes, NO glove box emblem, DOES have the dash emblem & rear quarter lower trim. was a wood wheel mentioned in options as mine has that aswell. Also blue stripes, i believe came on the first 6 months of production

[Ram4king]

IT WOULD APPEAR THAT WAY SWEETJUDGE! YOURS HAS TO BE ONE OF THE FIRST. bUT YOUR CAR IS NOT CODED FOR A WOOD WHEEL. N40 DELUXE WHEEL IS JUST THE BLACK WHEEL. YOUR LOOKING FOR CODE N34 I BELIEVE. IT WOULD SAY C/S WHEEL OR CUSTOM SPORT WHEEL. AIR CONDITIONING IS WAY COOL!

[Steve Hoog]

Very interesting.

[Todd Kozak]

Supcarbob: 2 patterns !! Good work! I think Framingham was building as early as 01B and 01C , but obviously Fremont has them beat by at least a week. Baltimore, Atlanta, Framingham and Fremont have 01 January built cars but what about Arlington? You have a very good point about plants building corporate/zone cars at the same time as dealer orderedcars, but I'm not convinced, it would not have taken very long to produce 2000 cars with 4 plants.

Sweetmuscle: thanks for sharing your info
Steved400: thanks for your insights , it is very interesting

[Geeto Tiger]

would this be an example of one of the first 2000 Judges?

[Todd Kozak]

thats how it looks

[Ram4king]

Originally Posted by Geeto Tiger

would this be an example of one of the first 2000 Judges?

It cant be! That car was built after my blue car!

[GTO JOHN]

Very interesting posts guys. Especially the history of the early Judges.

I have 3 Judges myself and one in particular is confusing a bit. I have a 4spd A/C Carosel Red Judge built date on cowl tag is 02B so that is 2nd week of Feb right? The master cyl and poewr steering box match the Feb build date. (motor & trans are long gone) The PHS shows an invoice date of 08/08/69 and a date of draft (what is that) of 09/01/69. Car was built in Arlington and sold to Bill Barry Pontiac in Santa Ana, CA. Why the big gap in dates? Why did it get shipped to Calif in late August? Was Fremont already tooled up for the '70 models?

By comparison my other Arlington built Judge is dated 05C on the cowl tag and May 05/23/69 on the invoice date. The VIN is later in sequence than the other car. My scanner is down otherwise I'd post the PHS. What is up with the Feb built car? Anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[supcarbob]

SWEETMUSCLE-your car is a factory/zone ordered.Your plant schedule date is 1-4-69,making it what has to be one of the first produced.Item #111 is order number '000143'.Also shows the original zone that car was ordered from,not a dealer listed.
Ram4king-earliest 'non Carousel Red' I have is a PHS invoice date of 3-10-69 from Arlington.Yours has also got to be one of first 'non zone/factory' ordered as well as one of first RAIV.
JimWankers- there was no pattern to a plant schedule an order.It is very possible that some 'factory/zone' orders were scheduled after' dealer' orders were started to be produced at a plant. Even today,I see no pattern when a car is scheduled. Also there were -6- plants that produced 'A' bodies-Arlington,Tx,Framingham,Ma,Fremont,Ca,Lakewod,Ga,B altimore,Md and home plant Pontiac Mi.
GeeTo Tiger-your car is also factory/zone ordered.Notice order #00021 and original zone code that ordered 09-991(Indianapolis In.)Your car is actually one of the last I have seen produced of the 'factory/zone ordes.

Also,does any one have a early (January/February Pontiac home plant "P" in VIN Judge?I don't recall seeing any early cars from that plant. There was not a lot of 'A' bodies made in home plant in 1969 due to high demand of all-new Grand Prix which was only produced in home plant in '69. 'A' body production was moved to other 5 plants in 1969

[Ram4king]

supercarbob,I have a good question for you and you might just be the man to answer it. There has to be a logical readon im not getting. WHY DID PONTIAC BUILD JUDGES IN BALTIMORE TO ONLY SEND TO PONTIAC WHERE THEY HAVE A PLANT AND IVE SEEN CARS BUILT IN CALIF SENT TO PA AND PONTIAC MICH CARS SENT DOWN SOUTH. Would they not save alot of money in shipping by having the closest plant to your state build them??? HOPE THIS DOSNT SOUND TOO DUMB! My baltimore built judge was sent to WOODWARD AVE in ferndale michigan!

[UPC-WU2]

My Judge was built at Arlington and shipped to Wisconsin.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

GTO JOHN: There is a thread over in the 70-72 GTO section by The Boss Called "Ever Wonder About Your Car" that will explain about your conflicting dates Car. He had the same type scenario.


TOPIC: I recognize that there were "Pattern Cars" made available - especially due to the fantastic info supplied by supcarbob. However I somewhat disagree with the speculation of all the first Cars being built strictly by the patterns. It is a good topic for discussion still, none the less. And it has supplied us with the proven info from Bob concerning the pattern order.

I also think a "Pattern Car" could be ordered at perhaps anytime in the model year. As note: my non-pattern Judge was built several weeks before Geeto Tiger's pattern Judge was built. Some sales departments were more knowledgable than others. I also wonder if perhaps a "rebate" may have been involved with the pattern Cars. Much like the option-incentive packages of today.

Wasn't The Judge's target designed to be a very cost effective high profile/bang for the buck musclecar to compete with the less expensive and spartan "stripped not equipped" offerings of Mopar ? I think the pattern has too many luxuries for all the first Cars to have been done that way, since an attractive car/price was the initial target. Just my opinion, the pattern was only a sales recommendation ($$$).

[Steve Hoog]

Baron

My uncle told me that Pontiac told the dealers not to sell the Judges at retail, but price them higher. I say that in reference to your suggestion of a rebate, it would seem odd that the dealers were told to sell higher and get a rebate. I'll ask him later today, just the same.

This has been a very informative thread.

[Ron Landis]

deck lid trim was another trim piece thet was "deleted as depleted", from what I understand. I've seen dealer service bulletins, posted on this site, actually, but I cannot determine a correlation to the quarter trim or establish a date/plant timetable of which cars had it and which did not. Would love to nail these idiosyncracies down, but might be difficult, or at least time consuming. Always that one piece of documentation popping up to throw a monkey wrench into the whole works. Anyway, good luck with this. Interesting. Ron

[Steve Hoog]

Just got off the phone with my uncle again. To the best of his memory there was no rebate, and he was reasonably certain the next car they handled in this manor was the 70 Trans Am's.

[taximan]

Ram4king,

I can answer that. The order process from dealers were matched not necessarily by zone, but by future (2 weeks - 1 month) build schedules. Therefore the plant that got your particular order had nothing to do with the dealer location, It was built on the immediate upcoming build schedule by model.

As supercarbob stated, the Grand Prix builds received a much higher priority for build schedule. That is also the reason that most G-P's came from Pontiac. The more experienced assemblers were in Pontiac, and top brass could keep a closer eye on things.

I did research on the build production by plant, and found that probably well less than 20% of 69 GTO's were Pontiac plant built. I am tempted to do an informal survey of PY forum people to see if that small sample gets the same results. All 6 plants did not equally build these cars.

One of the things that I have tried to track was assemply variations by plant. either intentional or unintentional. Just from GTOAA and POCI members, as well as this board it appears as though the most correct cars (according to AIM specs) came from Pontiac, and the biggest variations from arlington.

This is certainly not scientific, but if you talk to people with starnge things on their GTO's, you'll find many came from arlington. Many people have said Baltimore plant was also notorious for screw ups, but I haven't found that to be the case.

[Steve Hoog]

taximan

What is the earliest built regular GTO you have found from Pontiac?

And do you have any 68 built regular 69 GTO's with Ramair? Or what is the earliest 69 build date you have seen for that scenario?

[Todd Kozak]

Ram4 King, the date on the phs is not the build date of the car. The phs shown above is for A120945, which would have been produced about 02B. Your car was built in March. That 'pattern' is what was in question.
Also, Pontiac did not produce a Judge until sometime in the late winter early spring of 69 because they were building the first new G body Grand Prix and I suspect John Z. wanted to oversee his babys progress and remain in control of quality.
By that time, the need for a 'pattern ' was over and done, I've never seen another 'pattern' car after Feb March 69, anyone have a PHS to show otherwise?
Because Pontiac was not producing, Baltimore, Framingham and Atlanta and Fremont bore the brunt of the production, including the 'pattern' cars. What is the earliest Arlington built Judge anyone knows about? And remember, the date on the PHS is simply a ship date not a production date!
So, I would have to say in answer to my initial question... this was the first musclecar to be built and pre-packaged after a 'pattern' and sold to the public.
The difference between this car and say a Talledega was the Judge was purely a marketing effort, designed to bring the whole GTO line back into the public view after several years of sales and a now-diluted marketplace awash with musclecars of every sort.. It was initially a low-buck mopar beater as the E/T concept but John Z. changed all that.
This is a 'pattern' that automakers follow to this day!!

[Geeto Tiger]

Originally Posted by jimwankers

Ram4 King, the date on the phs is not the build date of the car. The phs shown above is for A120945, which would have been produced about 02B.

Actually the Judge above was built 02C, just to set the record straight