rear quater panels "stencil'

[Michael H.]

Re: 1982 Pilot Corvettes

Interesting that some were actually crashed or destroyed during testing. I know of one coupe that was crashed and wound up staying at GM for years.

[Terry M.]

Re: 1982 Pilot Corvettes

My brother-in-law has a 1968 around #3500 with "pilot line" marked on the interior pieces. Green interior.

[Gordon Peterson #4961]

Another One

My wife owned a '68 convertible in the #1700 range IIRC with a Dark Orange leather interior. "Pilot Job" was stamped onto the back of most interior panels, not just the quarters. This really was an odd car however with a bunch of odd options per the tank sticker. It was sold as new with mileage and full warranty in the fall of > 1969

[Art A.]

Re: Another One

Gordon;

"It was sold as new with mileage and full warranty in the fall of > 1969 "

I would guess, and this is strictly a guess not knowing more about the car, but it sounds like it could have been an Engineering fleet vehicle.

GM had/has a special arrangement with the state of Michigan, where GM "holds" the title to the fleet vehicles until they are done with Engineering evaluation. This could have been 3 mo, 6 mo, or even two years. When evaluation was done, the vehicle was offered to employees as a NEW vehicle purchase......with warranty thru a dealer of the employees choise. Generally with low mileage, 3 to 6 K, but it could have been much more.

Art

[John H.]

Re: 1982 Pilot Corvettes

There were Pilot or Pre-Production vehicles built every year, normally from 12-16 weeks prior to Start of Production, primarily for Engineering evaluation, advertising photography, magazine road test/car show use, and debugging/validation of assembly tooling and validation of new supplier parts.

My group at the Chevrolet Pilot Line managed the specifications, material supply, scheduling, and destination shipping for all Chevrolet Pilot units, whether we built them ourselves at our Pilot Line in Flint (which was the '53 Corvette plant in 1953) or if they were built at the Chevrolet assembly plants.

As the nightmare '68 launch proceeded at St. Louis, it could be said that the entire '68 model year's production were "Pilot units", with the never-ending stream of on-the-fly running changes and the "second" launch which introduced the coupe body style in late January. The first 10,000 units (through the end of January) were all convertibles.