1981 Corvette two tone St louis

[John P.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

[Michael J.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

Thanks for the picture, that is not at all like the BG tutone reds.

[David H.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

John,

Do you have “Shipper” document from GM archives for your car? That might shed some light on your question.

Dave

[Tom R.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two-tone paint & manifest codes

I happen to be browsing my manifest (buildsheet) inventory for another project and looked thru the 1981 buildsheets. I do not have a St Louis two-tone paint code manifest but have a couple of Bowling Green two-tone buildsheets.

The RPO called out for two-tone paint is Z05 and printed in the RPO column. This is accompanied by the following RPO paint codes

• 50L FROST BEIGE
• 50U FROST BEIGE
• 54A GOLD STRIPE
• 64I DOE INT TRIM
• 642 DOE LEATHER
• 74M BRONZE ACCENT

With the exception of the 64 trim codes, all others are related to the two-tone paint scheme. You'll see here 50L and 50U instructed the factory worker to paint the entire vehicle. They then came back to paint the 74M accent color or bronze in this two-tone scheme. In box 79, the codes read out LW=50, UP=50, ST=74. In addition the 54A "Gold" stripe prints in box 105.

The Bowling Green manifests (buildsheets) used an "improved" database when printing out the buildsheets in contrast to those used in St Louis. Remember, these operations were running in parallel. The St Louis plant still typed out key codes (with a typewriter) and the last six digits of the VIN. In contrast, BG manifests had these operations automated and the key codes were no longer typed or printed while the entire VIN sequence printed via the teletypewriter and its OCR font.

This is what I would expect to see on a 1981 St Louis two-tone paint scheme manifest. I would speculate that if St Louis was painting two-tones, then they were also testing the RPO data fields so they could see what to expect with the BG two-tone database rather than running these live for the first time at the BG plant during full production. These processes were not exactly arbitrary.

[John P.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

I do have the shipper document. There is a section towards the bottom where the car goes from $14729 to $15268.58. Bob Mcdormans name is in this section then below It has his name again with shipping day and address . I cant read what the charges are for. Where can I find a copy of the shipper document that shows the fine print.

[John P.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

What box on the build sheet is the RPO

[John P.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

I found it. My box 105 is blank. Code 75 u 75l. But as I understand these cars for the gm execs where pulled out of cars that were a finished product.

[Tom R.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

But as I understand these cars for the gm execs where pulled out of cars that were a finished product.

Exactly...they went through the same production process and some document would have directed the factory to build a particular unit. For example, in 1978 four Corvettes were built for lap tracks at the Indy 500 race. I have a copy of the GM inter-organizational letter that directed the "special effects" beyond and/or including the RPO Z78 Pace Car package that included 001, 002 and two regular coups outfitted with RPOZ78. We know the VIN of all four Pace Cars.

Trim and paint codes are in the last column of RPOs. Look for paint codes like the 75. The red associated with code 75 is even a different two-tone paint combo and their unique codes. The point is without documents (manifest, trim tag, GM letter, etc) that confirm a build's legacy, its only a story.

[David H.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

I do have the shipper document. There is a section towards the bottom where the car goes from $14729 to $15268.58. Bob Mcdormans name is in this section then below It has his name again with shipping day and address . I cant read what the charges are for. Where can I find a copy of the shipper document that shows the fine print.

John

Shipper document is available from GM Archives - link below (1977 & up). However, seems like you already have this document.

Dave

http://www.gmmediaarchive.com/?page=1

[John P.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

Does anyone have a shipping ledger that you can read all the fine print. There are additional charges of over $500 after the shipping is added in and some other fees. Thanks for all your input Tom. Let me figure out shipping doc if it doesn't help it will be painted by the weekend.

[John P.]

Re: 1981 Corvette two tone St louis

Yes I have one. Has all the options. Then almost at the bottom it has additional charges, Bob McDormans name is there cant read the fine print to see why. Then the very bottom has its being shipped to Bob McDorman destination codes and such