1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

[Richard M.]

A good friend of mine found this when he cleaned out his workshop building. He's a prior aircraft designer and boat designer. He lived in South Florida for many years then moved into the area years ago. We met at a car show and became good friends over time. He's also a car guy and has restored, built, and designed boats, cars, trucks, hotrods, tractors, campers, etc. He's very clever and his skills amaze me.

So when he cleaned out his huge shop he found this book. He said he was ready to toss it but knew I was a avid researcher so he brought it over. I'm glad he did. It appears to be the same type used at the dealer Parts Depts back in the 60's.

I've never seen one like this before. It weighs a ton. It covers '53 to '66 Corvette, along with '38 up cars and trucks.
The Special Information Catalog has detailed trim and body diagrams etc.

Rich

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[Dan B.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

Nice find Rich!

It would be interesting to go through that book and cross reference the early Corvette parts. Does it have any different or more detailed illustrations of the older discontinued parts than the later 53-82 Corvette only book?

[Mark S.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

This was a common parts book that would have been in a Chevrolet or GM dealership in the day. These books were updated each year and sometimes updated several times in a calendar year. Once the computer came on line these books were usually discarded by the dealerships.

[Mark E.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

Neat find.

Maybe NCRS should digitize it and make it available to all.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

Nice find Rich!

It would be interesting to go through that book and cross reference the early Corvette parts. Does it have any different or more detailed illustrations of the older discontinued parts than the later 53-82 Corvette only book?

Dan, It might but I didn't find anything different when I looked through it at the Corvette illustrations. Many looked familiar to the others I've seen. If you have any particular numbers let me know and I can check.

One thing I saw that I'd not seen before was way in the back it had many pages of details. One page was all about 6v & 12v bulbs. A while ago there was a thread asking about 6v bulbs. This would've come in handy then.

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This was a common parts book that would have been in a Chevrolet or GM dealership in the day. These books were updated each year and sometimes updated several times in a calendar year. Once the computer came on line these books were usually discarded by the dealerships.

That's probably what happened to this one. My friend said he's had it for many years.

Neat find.

Maybe NCRS should digitize it and make it available to all.

Mark I don't know how many pages it has but I'd be happy to loan it out to be scanned. It'd take a lot of page flipping for sure.

edit.... I just noticed in the bulb page it shows page "1535" at the bottom, and that's just the Details Book. The other Parts book may be around the same based on the thickness. So over 3,000 pages estimated.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

I bet Joe Lucia has several like this. His library is amazing. His Parts Department is too.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

This morning I decided to open the book to get better access to some of the pages. It was pretty tight but figured out I had to bend the lock release lever to its normal shape the had to use pliers and a hammer to release the lock mechanism. I think I may have woken up Cathie a little but I'll hear from her later if I did....

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So rummaging through it I came across a Wheel Section. Here it is. Interesting info and pricing. Expensive for the day but wouldn't it be nice to buy a real Knockoff at those prices today.
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I then found the Standard Parts Section, the section with all of the bolts and fasteners etc. Since I have this monster apart I'm going to digitize/scan all of those 24 pages and maybe add them to our Database Sticky Thread later(done). I'll have to stick with JPG images because PDFs will be too large for uploading. I'll try PDFs too. (edit I made PDFs also available)

See THIS POST for the 24 pages.

I have a local small business copy center near me. I may take a ride over and see what kind of pricing I could conger up with the owner to do 3000+ pages. It'd be really nice to get it PDF'd with OCR search capability. I don't have that OCR software.

I promise if I can get good pricing I would make it available gratis to all. I'm not out to make money with my gift.

Some history.... Sorry this is a bit off-topic but applicable as you'll see...

My friend's name who gave me this book is Dan Maher. As mentioned we met years ago at a car show/cruise night, IIRC around '08. Cathie and I took 2 cars. Me in my '59 and Cathie in her '72 E-Type. Dan was all over the restoration book of pictures I had of the Jag when I restored it('97 to '01), which I had sitting in the boot(trunk). Cathie entered it in 3 Florida Jaguar Concours events earlier that year and scored very well.

Well, when we walked back to the car Dan asked me who restored it. I told him WE did(meaning Cathie and myself). I did the grunt work and she did lots of stuff to help. That's how our friendship began. He invited me over to his shop when I had time. I went there a few days later. Awesome building. He had several cars and boats and projects. He hand built several boats and they were amazing.

I then noticed a few pictures on the wall. One was the cover of Popular Science (or Mechanics I forget right now) with the Velocity on the cover. I always read those and had a flashback of reading that many years ago. I asked Dan, "What's that? Did YOU invent that?" He said yes and we talked for about a hour about it. Amazing.

Here's some Velocity info....

http://wiki.velocityoba.com/index.php?title=UnOfficial_Velocity_History

Today....

https://www.velocityaircraft.com/

He then told me he used to live right up the road from where my house is near Sebastian, just across the river in Micco. His house was on the river across from mine about 1/4 mile away. What a coincidence.

Since then we've had a long lasting friendship and we get together either here at my shop or his. He taught me much about fiberglass since he was a boat builder too. He taught me about resins and details about fiberglass technology. I was in the process of restoring a '59 including a new front end nose and what products would be best. His great advice helped me with the project. In particular he advised me to use Vinylester resin versus Polyester for any body work(of which was a lot!), because it shrinks less and that I used 3M epoxy to bond the nose. It sticks better to epoxy than Polyester.

Comps info....

https://www.sollercomposites.com/EpoxyResinChoice.html#:~:text=There%20are%20three%20main%20types,discuss%20each%20of%20these%20resins.

He also recommended the use of Duratec surfacing Primer, which was a great product to help fill grainy areas of the body due to the off-site rough paint removal process done by the prior owner of the car. Also recommended over the epoxy. The Duratec flowed out great and block sanding was quite easy as it dries orange peeled and acts as a automatic Guide Coat.

As you can tell Dan is one of those on my "Heroes" list".

More P&A book talk later....
Rich

[Thomas N.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

That is a really cool book...And an even cooler story. Here is my P&A books I've accumulated. My favorite is the 69 Corvette P&A. It covers all midyears and the first shark cars, and has so many illustrations that the later P&A books do not have.IMG_3264.jpg
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[Loren L.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

Thanks to a late parts man at Lou Grubb Chevrolet, I have an almost complete from 1953 through 1968, which is, I believe the last year that Chevys and Corvette were together in the same book. Before the repro industry grew, it was always amazing at the junkyard when you asked for a Chevy part instead of a Corvette part.

[Ray K.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

Richard, All ----

In addition to my several Chev P & A catalogs, I have 3 or 4 of the Illustration and Special Information catalogs.. This was the technical reference that was offered in addition to the P & A catalogs. If you needed to know the body style number or the model number of a vehicle or wheelbase spec, this is where you looked. It also contained all the engine, transmission and differential codes for all Chev models. At that time, illustrations were not included in the regular P & A books.. If you wanted an illustration of some assembly or component, ranging from a Corvette to Series 70 or 80 Heavy duty truck, this is where you would go. Occasionally, the illustrations would offer up part numbers, but the norm was usually just a group number, whereby you had to go back to the master parts catalog to determine the part in question. Corvette's were not separated from the main catalog until 1970 when a exclusive publication became available.
I do not have the catalog binders as you show in your photo's. There were purchased individually in addition to the regular parts catalog subscription which was renewed by the dealer annually.

Ray

[Richard M.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

Good info Gents, Thanks for sharing.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

Well yesterday I got a quote at Staples where my God-daughter works to scan 3286 pages to PDF with OCR search capability.....

$1.00 per page
(how do they make any money with that cheap rate?)lol

Also getting a quote from my Mom&Pop copy place here in Sebastian. I should know today but I don't have my hopes up.

I may have to go to Plan B..... I just need to figure out what Plan B is. It would take me about a year to scan it on my HP Printer/Scanner. At least it has auto feed but only does one side at a time then you have to rotate/flip the stack to get the other side. So actually maybe 2 years. (BTW I don't buy green bananas anymore).

[Terry M.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

Well yesterday I got a quote at Staples where my God-daughter works to scan 3286 pages to PDF with OCR search capability.....

$1.00 per page
(how do they make any money with that cheap rate?)lol

Also getting a quote from my Mom&Pop copy place here in Sebastian. I should know today but I don't have my hopes up.

I may have to go to Plan B..... I just need to figure out what Plan B is. It would take me about a year to scan it on my HP Printer/Scanner. At least it has auto feed but only does one side at a time then you have to rotate/flip the stack to get the other side. So actually maybe 2 years. (BTW I don't buy green bananas anymore).

If you have the time, and a UPS store nearby, you might get a copy quote from them. I had an 800 page manual (single side) copied from them for $25.00.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

Thanks Terry I'll check with them.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: 1938 to 1966 P & A Catalog and Special Information Catalog

I've been working with my local shop. It's 3286 pages, but half that to handle as they're double sided, so 1643.

The owner threw out a $# that may be very attractive, not a per page # but a "job" #.

BTW he has a full Adobe Acrobat license in house and has Online access to their services. He pays $80 a month to have it and gets updates etc.

Question.... The worker there told me yesterday she has to go into EVERY page manually to make it searchable. I don't think so. I told her I'd check. I asked for the version she uses for reference.... Acrobat Pro 2020.013.20064

So, for the Adobe PDF experts please..... To scan to a PDF to make it OCR searchable, what is the process?

I found THIS. Seems pretty simple, right?

Rich