No, what I said was BUICK threw them out in the trash. The dumpster diver lucked out the day he/she rescued that film...
Well, O.K. But why would Buick selectively throw out only certain years or only half of a given year? And then some 'dumpster diver' comes along? I'm sure Buick had security and protocol back then. And yet, internal production information, I would think, would not be the type of info to just be thrown out like scrap paper. Then, when Buick did decide to provide historical records to Sloan, there were obviously many, many other years' records that somehow did not manage to 'disappear'. Curious, that's all, because some pieces of the puzzle don't seem to fit.
The story I got from Sloan is that GM (Buick) decided to trash all of the records and misc stuff they had and they gave Sloan only a few hours to grab what they could and the rest went into the dumpster. I was told there was a huge amount of documentation to grab (records, reports, photos, booklets, etc...) It is not only the '71 info that is missing, anything before 1970 is missing and even the 1967 Daily Car Reports are missing. Now someone may have went dumpster surfing and pulled some select info but who knows what and why would they not come forward with it?
Well, OK. "Some" of the records were recovered and donated to The Sloan Museum by individuals. "Some" of the records were found and sold to others for a price. "Some" of the records have not been recovered or, at least, not turned up for whatever reason. I don't think Buick donated everything that is housed in Sloan, but they did donate a lot of stuff. What happens when an individual retires or is no longer in the employ of a company? Their desk gets cleaned out. What is in their desk is thrown out in the trash. What makes one think there were only one set of records? Just throwing out some ideas for all of us to consider...just to get you thinking! :grin:
I'm sure some of the very old records are paper records, but "modern" stuff would be on microfiche. I know Sloan has much more than they even know they have. It becomes a matter of cost/benefit to spend the time to sort through everything. They should hire an archivist (?sp) to know what they have and organize things. After all, this is THE history of Buick!
From what I have been told, Buick needed to clear out a warehouse and decided to dispose of the contents. I believe the Sloan people were allowed to go through this (over a very short period of time) and take what they wanted. After that it got trashed. It must have been very dificult to go through everything and pick out the pieces to be saved. (For those that do not agree with this statement, come over to my house and try to find something in the piles of info that I have, and my info is mostly sorted and in binders.) Some of the microfilm reels were found while others were not. To be honest I am suprised so much info has survived. Before the microfilm was found I was the only guy that could decode buildsheets and prove the cars were real. The result is this, For 1971 there are no "paper" records, and the 71 microfilm has never surfaced. This means there is no 71 factory info available other then found on buildsheets. This is why there are only around 20-22 documented 71 GSX's. Duane
Back in about 1991 or so, I was trying to find and contact the original owner of my car. I made a good contact with a Buick dealer owner who gave me the name of his zone contact, who in turn gave me the name of a contact at GM. I called that man and told him I had a GSX and was looking for any records or info on GSX's. He said he was looking at the white GSX from the Car Craft Americruise which was parked near his office and he was a big fan of GSX's, GS's and GN's, etc... He told me that GM had thrown away a lot of info and he saved some for his own personal collection. He was nice enough to send me a thick envelope full of GSX marketing research analysis and comparisons with competing musclecars of the day and a stack of spec sheets, part #'s, photo copies of order forms and even a few different black and white 8x10 press photos of a GSX with a model in the picture. He said he got his collection from the trash so GM must have tossed a lot of good stuff back then. Paul
I'd be nice if Wayne Roberts chimmed in here and gave us his take on the mysterious 71 72 cars...... On anouther subject thats way off topic regarding the headlight bezels in this thread, I took my bezels from the skylark into the paint shop and they told me they can powder coat with a new primer product right over the chromed portion that needs to be painted as the X's are, then they'll powder coat with gloss black to match the paint on the car. No etching required? I'll take pics and let you all know how it turns out in the proper section of the forum.
I have already talked to Wayne, and he has no further info about the 71 microfilm. The 72 microfilm is at the Sloan Museum. Duane
On anouther subject thats way off topic regarding the headlight bezels in this thread, I took my bezels from the skylark into the paint shop and they told me they can powder coat with a new primer product right over the chromed portion that needs to be painted as the X's are, then they'll powder coat with gloss black to match the paint on the car. No etching required? I'll take pics and let you all know how it turns out in the proper section of the forum.[/QUOTE] >>I would definitely like to see how this turns out. I'm probably going to get mine beadblasted before painting as there are a few small pits on my bezels.
yep... right you are, I forgot to mention the paint shop plans on bead blasting the bezels before powder coating them.
>>Out of curiousity so I know what to expect when I get mine done, what are they going to charge to do this?
I like threads like this.. Like talking to the guys at work and hashing it out.. This is how information gets handed down to the new guys.. Me having a 71 Stage1 with no paperwork finding out that having on OW or BB TH400 transmission with the same VIN number as the body, indicates you having a Stage1. This being the only true way of knowing what I have a 1971 Stage1 without having the original build sheet. Now I would like the film to surface scince I know mine is a real Stage1.. But I can see how people now would not like it to be found.. Look how much more these cars are worth with original paperwork..
