I have been in contact with the Sloan Museum and EMI and hope to move forward soon on as many of the manuals as possible. Is anyone intersted in the big car manuals too? Mark
Me! Me!! Me!!! All years would be great, especially 72. Also, what about stuff like a Skyhawk? They available??? Thanks for doing this!!
The Skyhawk may be available if you contact Sloan directly. I did not look for that specific car but they do have information well into the 90's. After 1972 they are called PDM - Product Description Manuals. They should be in the same area as the year information but they may include all other like models for that year. The manual is most likely 400-500 pages or so. I know the later years were a lot larger than the early year cars. I image they would be willing to help you with that at the given rate of 20 cents a page and 30 dollars an hour. If I go back, I can certainly look into it. I am not currently planning a trip to the Sloan this year. Mark
I would be interested in assembly manuals for 63,64,65,66 big car including Riviera. Some of the current available manuals for later years are almost useless due to poor copy quality--Need to do it right even if it costs a little more. Thank you for taking on this project! John :beer
Dave, I believe that Sloan does have 1973 and 1974. When I looked at the books they appear to be around 1500 pages or more for each year. I personally do not think there is enough interest in 1973 and 1974 to make the financial commitment to get them reproduced when you consider how much GM wants as a minimum to allow them to be copied. Sloan can do one off type copying. I think they charge 20 cents a sheet plus 30 an hour for time. On something that large you may be able work out a better deal with them then 20 cents a sheet. Mark
In general Sloan has most of this information in their archives. The problems I have come across are the following. 1. Sloan does not have the funding to reproduce documents for sale. 2. GM corporate will require a copyright release to even Sloan. This requires a 3 year commitment and a mimum guaranteed fee. 3. The Buick market will most likely not be able to support enough sales of the books to make it profitable for a lot of the years. 4. I don't know the big cars well enough to know if there is support or not. There may be enough in the Riveara club to have them support it. I will continue to work with Sloan on this topic. They are intersted but given the current economic climate it is difficult for them to find funding for these types or projects. I will just have to keep working on this and see how it goes. I know there is at least one other company that is working on this. The owner of the company indicated they were working with GM to license several assembly manuals for several of the brands. Mark
I have estimated you will need to sell approximately 50 units at $40.00 each to make a profit. Please understand that there is more to this than just units sold. There is a process that needs to be followed to get approvals, make printings, etc and that process takes time. I am currently working through the process. Thanks, Mark
Seems to me a lot of this could be made much easier by two things: GM relaxing their demands for copyright $$$ on documentation like this, and for the manuals to be available in electronic form which would eliminate the printing cost for all but those who want it on paper. I'd be in for a '64 Skylark manual but it's not on the list. GM needs to realize WE are what made them the giant they are and for restoration and identification purposes that we would use them for, the licensing fees should be minimal if any.
