73Coupe
Senior Member
Here's another one from June of '78. Seen in Palm Springs, CA a week ago and up for auction. I think it sold for about $8500.
When was the last production day for C-Bodies?
- Thread starter 1978 NYB
- Start date
patrick66
Old Man with a Hat
Butterscotch doesn't resonate with me; but damn, that is one nice NYB coupe! The lack of skirts helps the look of this specimen.
ceebuddy
Well-Known Member
Absolutely! The wheel opening chrome trim looks like there never were any skirts on this one. I assume they were an option even on NYB's? Or was it a no-cost delete option to have wheel opening trim instead of skirts?
patrick66
Old Man with a Hat
I believe skirts were a no-cost option on all NY models in '78, but I'm not 100% on that being true.
Somehow I completely missed Jeff's effort last summer. Update!
CS43T8C173849, SPD XXX, MDH 060510
CS23T8C174584, SPD XXX, MDH 060111 (auctioned in Palm Springs, CA, see above)
CL43N8C175464, SPD 606, MDH 051011
CS23N8C175963, SPD 606, MDH 061207
CS43N8C178624, SPD 612, MDH XXXXXX
CS43T8C178820, SPD 606, MDH 060908
CS43T8C179059, SPD XXX, MDH 060714
CS43N8C180501, SPD XXX, MDH 060910
CS23N8C181380, SPD XXX, MDH 060813
CS23N8C181403, SPD 619, MDH 061611
CS23T8C181510, SPD 619, MDH 061614 (Jeff's car, now with MDH)
CS43T8C181574, SPD 619, MDH 062011
CS43T8C181591, SPD 619, MDH 052212
CS23T8C182416, SPD 626, MDH 061610
CS43T8C182748, SPD 626, MDH 061309
CS23N8C183444, SPD 626, MDH 062013
CS23T8C183615, SPD 626, MDH 061413
So he came close, but not close enough!
78Brougham
"Chump"
Would've brought a lot more com if it wasn't that baby **** yellow.
69CoronetRT
Senior Member
Nice work. thanks.
Not one of those cars showing both the SPD and MDH have matching dates. Cars were not necessarily built on their scheduled day.
Notice how the MDH dates do not nicely coincide with the VINs. Cars were not built in VIN order.
Soooooo....
Is Richard's car still the last known Formal?
Did he end up selling it?
Does anyone know?
No, the car printed in bold in the list is the last known Formal, MDH 062013. There is a four-day gap between June 20 and June 24, reportedly the day C-body production ended. Counting out saturdays and sundays, there are no such large gaps between the other MDH's listed for June.
Note that there is also a four-day gap between the MDH and the date printed on the broadcast sheet for this one:
CS23T8C182416, SPD 626, MDH 061610, BCP 06200927
There's just this one known case so far, but it opens up a new line of thought. What if the doorsticker was applied after completion, but recorded the start of the assembly process?
Note that there is also a four-day gap between the MDH and the date printed on the broadcast sheet for this one:
CS23T8C182416, SPD 626, MDH 061610, BCP 06200927
There's just this one known case so far, but it opens up a new line of thought. What if the doorsticker was applied after completion, but recorded the start of the assembly process?
Sir, I'm just terrible with names. I'm sure you told us before but could you inform us again.
Myself and others on this forum really appreciate everything you have done with keeping the Last Formal" data straight for us! Thank You!!!
SPD = Scheduled Production Date
MDH = Month-Date-Hour
BCP = Broadcast Printed
I invented that BCP abbreviation myself, for "Broadcast Printed" on the actual 1978 sheet. Actually it also states the hour and minute: 06200927 = June 20, 09:27 am.
For a general lack of broadcast sheets that BCP date has never been taken into account in the discussion.
MDH = Month-Date-Hour
BCP = Broadcast Printed
I invented that BCP abbreviation myself, for "Broadcast Printed" on the actual 1978 sheet. Actually it also states the hour and minute: 06200927 = June 20, 09:27 am.
For a general lack of broadcast sheets that BCP date has never been taken into account in the discussion.
69CoronetRT
Senior Member
You are really doing some fantastic and necessary research on these cars. Thank you.
FWIW, I agree completely with what you're doing and how you're going about it. As more broadcast sheets turn up, even if it's not for cars towards the end of production, the question of differences between the MDH label and the broadcast sheet should become clearer. The BCP information may reflect and mostly likely refers to when the sheet was actually printed. So depending on how far back up the line the BCS was created, and whether or for how long a car was sidelined into a repair bay between the printing of the BP and when it actually rolled off the line, it may help to explain discrepancies between the BP print date and the MDH date info.
Lastly keep in mind that several broadcast sheets are printed are various points throughout the plant as the car is assembled. Whether any of this mid-plant BCS stay with the car (under seats/carpet etc) is another issue not fully understood.
The work you're doing is going to go a long way toward answering many of these questions.
Here's a new question for you: What's the EARLIEST date for a Salon? The car was introduced at the Detroit Auto Show in January of 1978. There would have been a couple of test cars built to try out the base/clear paint system, but I don't think "real" production began until at least February. If you can enlighten us/me on that, I'd love to know what you've learned.
Not sure if this question has been raised before or not. In the example you cite above, your show 927 as 9:27am. I'm pretty sure that the plant ran on a continuous clock so it's unlikely that this represents 9:27pm. But what's the possibility that this is a running shift clock and not a clock on the wall, clock. The plant ran two shifts, so the end of the afternoon shift would be at least late in the evening, if not close to midnight. But I don't recall ever seeing and MDH that shows much higher than 16 for the hour, which makes me think it's actual running time of the line on that particular day, and not the hour of the day. If you've got MDH numbers higher than 16, can you talk about them?
Kevin
i'd say this car lost its skirts along the way and the thicker rear wheel opening trim was added.
you can see the front wheel opening trim is different, skirt less cars had the wider black paint insert trim front and rear, this has the thinner trim on the front.
bigmoparjeff
Senior Member
I happened to run across this photo while I was looking for something else today.
Does anyone know where this car is?
Too bad they didn't do the same thing in 1978, though I'm not sure what the deal is with the "X" in the VIN. Is it a special VIN to show it's the last one built, or did someone just throw it in there so that they weren't publishing someone's VIN number?
Looks like it's probably black, but could be dark blue, green, burgundy, or brown. I made sure to check the VIN on the junker '75 that I owned years ago, and it wasn't it, which was good, since it would have been a monumental task to bring that one back from the dead.
Jeff
Does anyone know where this car is?
Too bad they didn't do the same thing in 1978, though I'm not sure what the deal is with the "X" in the VIN. Is it a special VIN to show it's the last one built, or did someone just throw it in there so that they weren't publishing someone's VIN number?
Looks like it's probably black, but could be dark blue, green, burgundy, or brown. I made sure to check the VIN on the junker '75 that I owned years ago, and it wasn't it, which was good, since it would have been a monumental task to bring that one back from the dead.
Jeff
I didn't come across any particularly early Salons so far, with broadcast sheet and door sticker and all that, so I don't have a clue. The fender tag gives the Salon away with codes RA3 for the body color, V8A for the vinyl roof and K3R for the body stripe. The earliest Scheduled Production Date I see there is April, 07, so that doesn't help very much.
MDH's with an hour indication of 16 or higher are indeed missing for the 1978 model year, but during other model years they're not exactly uncommon, be it from the East Jefferson, Belvidere or Newark assembly. Here's an example for 1974:
The explanation for this state of affairs was given way back in this thread:
In 1978, there was only one shift at East Jefferson. The earliest hour indication in 1978 MDH's is 06, the latest 15.
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In what magazine was this photo published?
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