Export RPO codes

[Terje K.]

[Warren F.]

Re: Export RPO codes

Terje,

I have a 1971 Corvette that has on the Corvette Order Copy sheet

ZX1AA Export Procedure #1

ZY6AA Export Taxable Status

[Terry M.]

Re: Export RPO codes

Those codes do not necessarily mean that the car ever left the USA. About 1999 or 2000, as best I remember, Ray Wolson wrote an article for The Corvette Restorer about those codes on his 1972. His car was ordered by a member of the military service who took delivery on his return from Viet Nam.

[Warren F.]

Re: Export RPO codes

Terry,

Thank you. I don't have that issue, but will look for one. I agree with your assertion, as an original owner of an LS6 sent me copies of his Corvette Order Copy document and GM overseas car ordering form, and his Ident No, and mine were extremely close with both being a 6 digit format instead of 5. The Zone No and Dealer code were identical. He was overseas in Europe when he ordered his car. I think that is the case with one of mine as well.

[Terje K.]

Re: Export RPO codes

Thanks for the comments. The article by Ray Wolson is on page 8 in the Spring 2001 issue of The Corvette Restorer.

The 1965 Corvette has zone 21 and dealer 002 and was delivered through GM Overseas Distributors Corp, in New York to a dealer in Holland. The car is now back in the USA and was at the 2007 Bloomington Corvette show.

The 1970 Corvette has zone 79 and dealer 002. This Corvette was sold via a dealer in Germany and the car is now in Austria.

It appears that there is very limited information available on export cars.

[Warren F.]

Re: Export RPO codes

Terje,

My '71 LS6 and the original owners '71 LS6 both have Zone 79 and Dealer 001. The original owner did indeed order his car from overseas in Germany, I do not know the history of mine, other than my Ident No is 102323 and his is 102349. All the normal Ident No's are usually 5 digits and Canadian cars use a mixture of digits and letters.

[Rob M.]

Re: Export RPO codes

In the C1, C2 and C3 registries we added recently a field to identify if a car was originally an export car. At least that we in the future we are able to trace back more of these cars...

In the year overviews you'll find this field called Export Car in one of the last columns.

greetings,
Rob.

[Warren F.]

Re: Export RPO codes

Rob,

I know of some LS6's that were physically over in Europe, however only one had tell tale signs that I'm aware of that show its overseas heritage. A white coupe in England, a orange convertible in Germany and a silver coupe in Sweden. The Sweden car had it's speedometer gauge in kilometers and an auxillary VIN plate, I did not see any signs of this on the other 2 cars, although they did have those codes and printing on their Corvette Order Copy sheets as did mine and the original owners car I spoke about earlier.

[John H.]

Re: Export RPO codes

Cars ordered by GI's overseas were ordered through the military PX system, and GMODC (GM Overseas Distribution Corp.) handled the military/PX orders, so most of those cars carried all the export scheduling options whether they were actually exported or not. Cars that were actually exported were prepped for shipment in Baltimore by Mortensen's Warehouse, the Chevrolet contractor that handled overseas shipping.