St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

[John M.]

About ten years plus or minus ago I was told a story from an individual with name recognition in this hobby. The story went like this:



Historically I am bad at remembering names unless exposed to them over and over for a while, so I cannot at this time recall the name of the individual that told me this story. I do remember that he lived in the vicinity of the St. Louis plant, and I think it was across the river but am not sure on that. What I do remember is the following: 1. He told me that he knew the employee and his wife. 2. He was privileged to hold this journal in his hands and document the build date for his own Corvettes. 3. The employee died a few years ago and the journal was now in the possession of his widow. 4. It was hoped that this journal would be given to either the Corvette Museum or Noland Adams.





Save the Wave ............

JG Mattson

[Wayne M.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

....... This book was a journal recording the VIN and Build Date of each and every Corvette ever built at the St. Louis plant, nothing more ......

I'd never heard the first part of the history/story, but the document in question is a ledger of the last Corvette off the line at the end of each PRODUCTION DAY; in other words, the ultimate birthday book .

And I believe it was/is in the hands of a well-known Corvette hobbyist. That's all I'm saying .

[Kenneth B.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

I'd never heard the first part of the history/story, but the document in question is a ledger of the last Corvette off the line at the end of each PRODUCTION DAY; in other words, the ultimate birthday book .

And I believe it was/is in the hands of a well-known Corvette hobbyist. That's all I'm saying .

Betting the man's initials are AG.
KEN

[Jim D.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

This book was a journal recording the VIN and Build Date of each and every Corvette ever built at the St. Louis plant, nothing more.

I guess I just don't understand the value of it. There are birthday calculators available online that seem to be very accurate. So what if they may be off a day. The actual, exact, positively correct day your car was built doesn't document anything other than that.

[Joseph T.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

About ten years plus or minus ago I was told a story from an individual with name recognition in this hobby. The story went like this:



Historically I am bad at remembering names unless exposed to them over and over for a while, so I cannot at this time recall the name of the individual that told me this story. I do remember that he lived in the vicinity of the St. Louis plant, and I think it was across the river but am not sure on that. What I do remember is the following: 1. He told me that he knew the employee and his wife. 2. He was privileged to hold this journal in his hands and document the build date for his own Corvettes. 3. The employee died a few years ago and the journal was now in the possession of his widow. 4. It was hoped that this journal would be given to either the Corvette Museum or Noland Adams.





Save the Wave ............

JG Mattson

Are you referring to Jack Knudesn who died years ago? Jack kept a log of cars by VIN and assembly date. I recall a day at Bloomington when he and another guy were trying to buy a 53 side curtain from me. Jack told me if I wanted to know what day my car was made he would have that in his files.

Not sure what happened to his log.

Joe

[Tom H.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

I guess I just don't understand the value of it. There are birthday calculators available online that seem to be very accurate. So what if they may be off a day. The actual, exact, positively correct day your car was built doesn't document anything other than that.

I agree, the dates aren't that big of a deal, but true St. Louis documentation of any kind is exciting to me. Regardless !

[Edward M.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

This information would be EXTREMELY valuable for 1956 production dates, since very little actual data exists.
This sounds like the data Jack Knudsen gathered.

[Edward M.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

I guess I just don't understand the value of it. There are birthday calculators available online that seem to be very accurate. So what if they may be off a day. The actual, exact, positively correct day your car was built doesn't document anything other than that.

The key word here is "calculators". In many cases, they "take an educated guess", which isn't the same as knowing for sure the actual date.

I have used various Corvette birthday calculators that indicate that the build date of my 56 varies by as much as a week.

A day might not be significant, other than to me, but a week definitely is significant.

Build date correlation to installed parts dates is important information.

I hope this log finds the light of day.

[Larry S.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

You guys are way out of my league on Corvette knowledge, so please excuse my 2 cents worth. If the person is one Jack Knudsen, and it sounds like people here knew him, why not just call or pay a visit to his widow?

[Wayne M.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

..... A day might not be significant, other than to me, but a week definitely is significant.....

Ed -- agree; I have a car that was produced the first day after a 6-week strike and another on the last day of production of the model year. In both cases, most "birthday calculators" are off, in some cases by OVER a week.

You'd hope that these aids would be a work in progress; that participants would submit their trim tag dates (S-bodies only in case of the C2's) and that the algorithm would be adjusted accordingly. In time, accuracy would improve.

[Ronald L.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

Where is the guy A.G.?

[Jim D.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

A day might not be significant, other than to me, but a week definitely is significant.

Possibly for the VERY EARLY cars but for the other million Corvettes built, the info. is basically useless. The calculators agree exactly with Noland Adams survey's as to the birthdays of my 60 & 65. A day or two or even a week make no difference.

[Jim C.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

It really sounds like a nice "Corvette artifact." If it exists, then it should be in the "museum," where we can all access it - FOR FREE!! I guess after reading all the posts on the topic, I'm left wondering why this is such a huge guarded secret? Why are we all whispering? What's the big deal? I seriously doubt that GM cares either way about "the book." It has much bigger issues to deal with, like for instance, staying in business.

If the current owner is afraid of GM, then he/she can make a copy of the book, and anonymously send the original back to GM. Then, anonymously send the copy to the museum, where we can all access it - FOR FREE!!

For some reason, the reverence being given to this topic seems odd to me. Maybe I'm just not getting the significance of it. It's interesting, but everyone seems "walking on egg shells" when discussing it. Like, "We know it's out there, but we shouldn't be talking about it." Again, what's the big deal? If I had to pick a conspiracy, I'd rather know the details behind who killed JFK. Am I missing something here?????

Jim C.

[Tom P.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

Yep, this sounds like the book (log) that Jack Knudsen had in his posession and after he passed away, his widow had the book (as well as whatever else Jack had accumulated over the years, which we may never see).
I've commented about this before, some of you may remember, but obviously most of you have not seen my previous comments about this issue.
I was one of the very fortunate few to not only see this log book with my own eyes, but Jack also provided me with the build date of my 56 (4363, which translates to Sept 7, 56). This occured at the 1981 NCRS Natls in St. Louis before someone royally pi$$ed him off and he closed the book for anyone to ever see again until he passed away.
In fact, right here on this forum, I posted pictures of the front/back of his business card that he wrote the first/last VIN numbers on for Sept 7, 56.
Surprisingly, there never seems to be much interest in this issue------------------------------I'm only speculating here, but the reason is probably because whoever pi$$ed him off that day is still with us and does not wish to admit that it was him who offended Jack. Oh Well----------------------

[Tom H.]

Re: St. Louis Plant Build Date Journal

It would be neat if the museum had this info. What a great fund raiser. 25.00 to get a birth certificate for your car. Heck, I'd buy one !

I'll be surprized if this book ever shows up again if the stories here are true. I believe they are. I doubted it at first, but after reading about some of these guys actually seeing it, I changed my thoughts.