VIN & Trim Tags Creation in St. Louis

[Owen L.]

Has anyone, like John Hinckley, ever described how the VIN and the trim tags were created?

• Did GM use Addressographs/Graphotypes like below?
• Was the information hand-typed into the embosser as each car rolled past? Or was the information input at the same time as the paper order sheets were created with the tags ready to go before the car was even started?

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[Tom R.]

Re: VIN & Trim Tags Creation in St. Louis

Owen...a most interesting question and study. I'll describe it as it was in the mid-1970s. You'll find it varied earlier than this period due to plant management by the Chevrolet Motor Division. By 73, GMAD, General Motors Assembly Division, had taken over plant management. John Hinckley provided much of this background as I was wrote articles about the 73-82 buildsheets, all culminating in the the Corvette Buildsheet Book.

Back in the late 90s, I had a chance to interview Will Cooksey as well an engineer supervisor that were at the plant during the mid-1970s. I learned the VIN tags, under federal regulation, were counted out each day depending on the day's scheduled builds. Thus, they had been stamped prior to delivery to the trim tag station. Also by this time, build sheets, actually the manifest, printed the assigned VIN tag #. The tags were riveted between the two paint booths, thus paint on the tag that due to no primer, would flake off. The body had a job number hand scrawled on the passenger-side underbody, thus worker could reconcile body to buildsheet and tag #. It was also during this period when Will Cooksey, a process engineer, introduced processing techniques...such as sorting jobs by option and paint...so all blues got painted, then whites, etc.

Buildsheets were not used as the daily job tool. A low-run sheet was printed that had sorted those options and contained all builds for the day. It was like an Excel columnar report...the Bowling Green plant still used those to this day!

This period witnessed the introduction of greater computerization into the assembly process which is seen in the number of units built from 75 through 1982. Hope this helps!

[Mark F.]

Re: VIN & Trim Tags Creation in St. Louis

Has anyone, like John Hinckley, ever described how the VIN and the trim tags were created?

• Did GM use Addressographs/Graphotypes like below?
• Was the information hand-typed into the embosser as each car rolled past? Or was the information input at the same time as the paper order sheets were created with the tags ready to go before the car was even started?

FL	Final Line (FL):
FL45	Create Protect-O-Plate

John does not specifically say that an Addressograph was used for VIN and Trim Plate creation

HT	Hard Trim Line (HT):
HT1	VIN Plate and Trim Plate (aka tag) created and affixed (only the VIN Plate was attached on A.O. Smith bodies because the Trim Plate was attached in Ionia MI where AOS bodies were made). Car data sent electronically to teletype printers throughout the plant, creating the Broadcast Copy the car was built from.

[Larry E.]

Re: VIN & Trim Tags Creation in St. Louis

Owen:Have taken many seminars on the above with Al Grenning/John Hinckley. The trim tags
where made with the above. (Addressographs/Graphotypes-Hand typed) Not sure on how the VIN tag
was made or the sequence when these things where generated. Larry P.S. Don't recall that a lot of
info was ever discussed on the VIN Plate.