Corporation documents

[Walter F.]

Does the Corevtte museum have infomation on cars before 1967. I ask because my brother who has a 57 Ford inquired on who the selling dealer was. Ford first said they would research that informatio for us.. They said it would take several days. After almost two weeks a phone call was made and Ford then told us they could not reasearch any car built before 1967. Are all records distroyed after a certain amount of years on a cars history or is this just Fords policy?

[John H.]

Re: Corporation documents

Does the Corevtte museum have infomation on cars before 1967. After almost two weeks a phone call was made and Ford then told us they could not reasearch any car built before 1967. Are all records distroyed after a certain amount of years on a cars history or is this just Fords policy?

Walter -

No, the Corvette museum doesn't have specific information on cars built prior to 1967, and neither does GM (the Corvette Museum has nothing to do with GM -it's an independent non-profit private enterprise). As for Ford, you'd have to ask them what their policy is.

[Dick W.]

Re: Corporation documents

Ford owners have access to the Marti Report. They were able to contract with FoMoCo early on to get access to the build records from 1967 through 1998? or so. I believe they actually have records earlier than that. It is a shame that this was not done for Chevrolet. One reason Pontiac records are available is that compared to Chevrolet, Pontiac production was miniscule in comparison. The enormous volume of Chevrolet paper generated, in the era before widespread adoption of computer records, would have been overwhelming. Also they were in the business of making cars and money, no thought was given to preservation of records.

NCRS is very fortunate to have access to what build data they have, by all accounts it should have been destroyed many years ago.

[Gary C.]

Re: Corporation documents

Walter,

As John can tell you the list is long and distinguished of former and retired GM employees that have searched everywhere for those docs including the salt mine storage facilities.

Gary
....

[Michael J.]

Re: Corporation documents

Actually, the story behind why Ford has a "Marti" report is far more interesting than most know. Kevin Marti got all his info from Lois Eminger, and that story is here:

http://automotivemileposts.com/tbird/tbird1957eminger.html

I had the pleasure of meeting and corresponding to Lois many times about my Mustangs and Shelbys. As I mentioned to some people at the Nationals, it is too bad GM didn't have a Lois.....

[Dick W.]

Re: Corporation documents

Actually, the story behind why Ford has a "Marti" report is far more interesting than most know. Kevin Marti got all his info from Lois Eminger, and that story is here:

http://automotivemileposts.com/tbird/tbird1957eminger.html

I had the pleasure of meeting and corresponding to Lois many times about my Mustangs and Shelbys. As I mentioned to some people at the Nationals, it is too bad GM didn't have a Lois.....

Kevin Marti speaks very highly of Lois

[Michael J.]

Re: Corporation documents

Kevin Marti speaks very highly of Lois

She was a fantastic lady, and had the moxie to convince Ford to send her every dealer invoice starting in '67. Talk about foresight and vision for us collectors and enthusiasts. In retirement, she drove that pink '57 Baby Bird all over the country on vacations, almost up to the end. An incredible lady.

[Wayne M.]

Re: Corporation documents

Bit of a footnote to say that GM Canada has records of all U.S.-built cars that were imported new into Canada. Don't know when they started this practice, but at least the '63-'66 C2 years (Colors, dealer #, dates). Then, starting with the 1967 MY and throughout C3 at least, the full options list as would appear on the build sheet.

Available for a fee from Vintage GM.

[Michael J.]

Re: Corporation documents

The real question is, why did GM Canada act rationally about record keeping and GM US did not??? What was GM thinking?

[Dick W.]

Re: Corporation documents

The real question is, why did GM Canada act rationally about record keeping and GM US did not??? What was GM thinking?

Canadian government regs, not GM's idea

[Michael J.]

Re: Corporation documents

Canadian government regs, not GM's idea

OK Dick, now you have destroyed my whole idea of useless government......

[Terry M.]

Re: Corporation documents

Actually, the story behind why Ford has a "Marti" report is far more interesting than most know. Kevin Marti got all his info from Lois Eminger, and that story is here:

http://automotivemileposts.com/tbird/tbird1957eminger.html

I had the pleasure of meeting and corresponding to Lois many times about my Mustangs and Shelbys. As I mentioned to some people at the Nationals, it is too bad GM didn't have a Lois.....

And the story behind why the Corvette Museum has the build documents for all Corvettes built in Bowling Green is not a whole lot different. One of the early plant managers (I wish I knew his name, but it was likely the first one)ordered workers to began to retain those records at the plant and succeeding plant managers continued the practice. Not too long after the Corvette Museum opened in 1994 the then plant manager, Wil Cooksey, gave those records to the Museum. I wish I would have seen this question a day earlier because I could have asked Wil for the detailed story. Wil was inducted into the Corvette Hall of fame this weekend, and not just for that action -- in fact that detail of his many accomplishments, while very important to us, wasn't even mentioned. For those of you who were at Carlisle: his burn-out prowess was duly noted.

In short they exist because one, or in our case a couple, of individuals at the right time and place cared about the product that was being produced. There was among those few an emotional connection to the product and to the rest of us who care about that product.

[Michael J.]

Re: Corporation documents

Well said Terry, and you do wonder why it took so much time for that attitude to develop in the corporate car world. I remember an interview with Lee Iacocca, where he was asked about the popularity of the early Mustangs and T-Birds, how they were all being restored and still around many decades after being produced. He said he was amazed, because they were just cars, and they produced them to sell, wear out, get thrown away, and have people buy more cars, he never conceived anyone would want to keep them that long or be so interested in how they were equipped or produced. In other words, it was just a mass manufacturing business based on selling millions, so what's the big deal? I think that may explain why none of the corporate suits ever really wanted to keep the records until very late in the '80s and '90s, so it was up to lower level people to do it on the sly.

[Terry M.]

Re: Corporation documents

Well said Terry, and you do wonder why it took so much time for that attitude to develop in the corporate car world. I remember an interview with Lee Iacocca, where he was asked about the popularity of the early Mustangs and T-Birds, how they were all being restored and still around many decades after being produced. He said he was amazed, because they were just cars, and they produced them to sell, wear out, get thrown away, and have people buy more cars, he never conceived anyone would want to keep them that long or be so interested in how they were equipped or produced. In other words, it was just a mass manufacturing business based on selling millions, so what's the big deal? I think that may explain why none of the corporate suits ever really wanted to keep the records until very late in the '80s and '90s, so it was up to lower level people to do it on the sly.

How easily those suits forget, or perhaps never knew.
I recall reading Corvette News in the late 1960s or early 1970s and Joe Pike quoting statistics about Corvette owners loyalty. Today the marketeers would call that brand loyalty. The numbers Joe Pike was mentioning were astounding. Something more than 80% of Corvette owners would buy another one -- and they probably did. Given what we now regard of the quality of those cars built to that time that brand loyalty is just astounding. And today's brand loyalty? Well here we are at nearly 16K members, and I just left the Corvette Museum where there was a full Corvette parking lot and probably not a dozen were NCRS members. I would guess there were in excess of 500 Corvettes there. If they have numbers for brand loyalty today I would bet it is just as strong as it was 40+ years ago.