1970 Owner's manual

[Joe L.]

Re: 1970 Owner's manual

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Keep this in mind: the two part numbers seen on the 1970 owner's manuals are numerically consecutive. This strongly implies that they were released at virtually the same time. If so, that pretty much eliminates the possibility that the higher numbered manual represents a revision or update of the manual.

Nevertheless, the fact that there were two part numbers indicates that there was some difference between the two manuals. If not a revision or an update what could the difference have been? The only thing I can come up with is the inclusion or not of the Corvette News order card. In addition, the fact that the 3907667 manual had the last digit hand-corrected to "6" essentially converts a 3970667 manual to a 3970666 manual and was important enough for someone to hand correct it. Assuming that none of the informational content of the manuals was also hand-corrected, that says to me that something else was done to change one part number into the other. Once again, the only thing I can think of is the inclusion of the Corvette News card.

[Jack M.]

Re: 1970 Owner's manual

Joe has a point... and it may somehow tie into the 1970 AIM image that I posted. Looking at that Misc Shipping List, we see it mentions '2nd Edition' for the Owner Manual... but observing a little more, ALL the other AIM revisions are still circled (#1 thru #8) but only #7 & #8 are listed in the LOWER revision section. So this '2nd Edition' blurb appears almost insignificant for the 'revision' section, and may have been decided upon very early... as Joe suggested, perhaps "released at virtually the same time". If the print change wasn't critical, perhaps the initial run of 666 manuals was used, until they ran out.

As I articulated previously... a page-by-page comparison (text/images/charts) of the 666 & 667 manuals, may be very advantageous.

[Mark E.]

Re: 1970 Owner's manual

All------


Keep this in mind: the two part numbers seen on the 1970 owner's manuals are numerically consecutive. This strongly implies that they were released at virtually the same time. If so, that pretty much eliminates the possibility that the higher numbered manual represents a revision or update of the manual.

Nevertheless, the fact that there were two part numbers indicates that there was some difference between the two manuals. If not a revision or an update what could the difference have been? The only thing I can come up with is the inclusion or not of the Corvette News order card. In addition, the fact that the 3907667 manual had the last digit hand-corrected to "6" essentially converts a 3970667 manual to a 3970666 manual and was important enough for someone to hand correct it. Assuming that none of the informational content of the manuals was also hand-corrected, that says to me that something else was done to change one part number into the other. Once again, the only thing I can think of is the inclusion of the Corvette News card.

Here's a guess for one theory: a printing error. CN inserts were mistakenly added to a run of 667's.

[Edward C.]

Re: 1970 Owner's manual

Hello Joe,
That is exactly how I see it, as you described.
The consecutive part numbers is ALSO what is crossed out on the 1969 manual I included above. The difference in the manuals in the 1969 example is the inclusion of the News card. The number which is crossed out on the ‘69 manual ends in 550, which is the “service” manual as opposed to what is NOT crossed out as labeled “prod” for production (ending in 548). From what I have researched (and can remember) those were very early manuals. But I haven’t seen a early 69 in years that had that version manual with it. Of course later the revised 2nd version came out ending 549 for prod and 551 for service. All consecutive numbers. Also the 548 manual was UPDATED early in the model year run to just show the 548 number without the word “prod” after it and no 550 number underneath it.

For 70, being a shorter than normal run, it’s possible they just ran out of 666’s and revised a bunch of 667 manuals to include the Card and manually changed the number. It’s just a reasonable guess. Maybe they didn’t want to or have the time to do another proper printing. Who really knows. That’s why I like these types of topics. Try getting to the bottom of something…even if trivial.

[Bill B.]

Re: 1970 Owner's manual

I'm wondering if anyone at the GM Heritage Center may have some insight or may know of a person (Helm employee?) who may be able to add some knowledge for us on this interesting subject detail!

[Gary B.]

Re: 1970 Owner's manual

I have had two "Original Owners" of 1970's lend me their original Owners Manuals to compare. One was a very early car, Manual 666. The other was a late car, what I'm going to call a 667 manual, with the 7 crossed out and 6 written above it. Just a casual look, the 666 manual has the Owner Card stapled into the spine. In the 667 Manual, the owner's card is glued onto the first page. See the Picture below. I have seen at least four other 667 manual that look like that.

2023-07-19 09.21.38.jpg

My chief detective (wife Rosey) did a comparison between every page in each of the manuals. I would say, they are basically the same manual, page for page, except for spelling errors, punctuation, and such. There is NO new information in one manual that is not in the other manual.

As an example, on page 33, 3rd column, line 1 the word "folding" is misprinted, misspelled in the 667 manual, but not in the 666 manual.
There are approximately 65 examples of these types of errors. Words were misspelled in the 666 manual, but corrected in the 667 manual. Also correct in the 666 manual, but misspelled in the 667 manual.

These were printed with different printing press dies. Too many errors in each, offset numbers and letters, different typeset in some words, and line spacing.

They are the same manual, but different.... if that makes sense.

Gary Bosselman
70-72 TIM&JG Manual Coordinator