J Numbers and Dealerships Question

[Arnie Cunningham]

Greetings All,   

A question has come up that I think we can answer with a group effort.  The answer may shed some more light on production numbers of Superbirds.

Were the "J Numbers" that were assigned to Superbirds, in some way correlated with specific dealerships?  Were the J Numbers a pre-production accounting method of linking specific dealerships with a car(s) that would later be built?

What brings up this question is the fact that my car has J Number J98355.  It was sold new at Mandan Chrysler Plymouth in Mandan, North Dakota.  Mandan Chrysler Plymouth was part of the Corwin group of dealerships in the region.  Ten miles east, Al Wald's Superbird was sold new at the Bismarck Corwin Chrysler Plymouth dealership.  Al's car has J Number J98354.  The numbers are consecutive.  The VIN numbers are not really all that close and the production dates found in the NASCAR list are different for the cars.  Also coincidental is the fact that the cars are absolute identical twins down to the door edge guards.  The only differences being that my car is Tor-red with a black interior and Al's is green with a white interior.  Otherwise, every option, and lack of option, is identical.

www.superbird.com Ken R. Noffsinger Greg Kwiatkowski  http://www.superbird.com/cda/cda_110669.html  recently posted an internal Chrysler document showing the quantity of Superbirds destined for various regions and sub-regions of the lower 48 states.  I started to wonder if those regions, sub-regions and dealerships were assigned a group of J Numbers before the assembly process began.  It would make sense that Plymouth would have had to decide which of its dealerships were going to get a car(s) before production began.  Without a VIN number (yet), the hypothetical vehicles would have to be given some identification.  The J Number seems logical.

Does anyone know how Plymouth decided which dealerships did, or did not, receive a Superbird or multiple Superbirds?

Would any of you who know the original dealership from which your car was sold be willing to share that data?  If we get enough cars, original dealerships and J numbers we may be able to put together a skeletal structure of the manner in which these cars were distributed.  This might help with narrowing down the production number.

What is the highest known J number of a car that is not Petty blue?

If I can get enough J numbers together, maybe other correlations will show up such as groups of J numbers matching engine/transmission configurations.

There are many more potential connections and questions but this should get the discussion started.

Thanks,
Brennan R. Cook

[nascarxx29]

The allocation reference « Reply #3 on: August 23, 2009, 06:49:25 PM » Quote Modify   Re: More data and speculation loaded to web.

 This is what I was refering to allocation of
1850 superbirds they had to get sold at these regions

http://aerowarriors.com/cda/cda_110669.html





I got original paperwork window sticker builsheets etc for my and maybe some friends superbirds on file.Will find and post.I earlier had something in similar thoughts as groups of daytona vin numbers from the daytona shiplist. .And how the cars landed in certain locations geographically as a NJ and PA car for example were 1 vin away.And twin built indentical matching cars 1 vin off


    Re: S.E. Daytona Question
« Reply #18 on: June 15, 2009, 08:46:25 PM » Quote Modify  

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Sometimes there in sequential form .And then there not starting with 287970-?- 355101-355156-356502-356538-358397-358403-376479-379752-381527-381930-383263-386970 -388179-388881 390006-390044 398852-398855-400562-400608-402961-405189-409021-409079-410759 {410 vins mostly Ca cars }410797-412542-412550.{414 cars are Canada daytonas 414558-414666-417456-419443-419444-423238-423240-434780
Ive wondered as far to see if there were twin cars 1 vin away in a certain number sequence .Sometimes yes and sometime no.I know these cars 356521 and 356522 are matching twins

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,58499.0.html

[nascarxx29]

Thats why I feel the former Chrysler employees are a valuable resource.For this material .I did find a former employee that lives in my area that allocated 69 daytonas to NJ PA dealerships zones .I gave his namer and number to one or both clubs didnt hear anything further.Then I found a guy whos job it was to go to race tracks gather vins .And not allow warranty repairs on hemi etc cars.When they came in trying to claim a repair from recording there vin

[learical1]

Thats why I feel the former Chrysler employees are a valuable resource.For this material ...Then I found a guy whos job it was to go to race tracks gather vins .And not allow warranty repairs on hemi etc cars.When they came in trying to claim a repair from recording there vin

I remember hearing of this, also.  Ma Mopar would have someone at all the local dragstrips, taking pictures of the newer Dodges and Plymouths showing them staging (with the license plate in the photo).  I would assume that the same person would try to get VINs on vehicles without plates on them.  If we could get some of that info. . .

[nascarxx29]

Any ideas on what #333 refers to this is from the salesman bulletin board also note salesman card and Dodge Delta Sales Club.Whatever that is

[nascarxx29]

On these I dont have J numbers. But I have the dealers name and location and vin from actual ads I researched and found
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,60970.0.html

[FJ5WING]

is there any way to determine who the original selling dealer was? I have the build sheet if that will help me.

As far I believe the car is from Illinois.

[nascarxx29]

Anything you can pm me Dave I will see what I can dig up buildsheet has a J 97 or 98 number on it

[xs29j8Bullitt]

Would any of you who know the original dealership from which your car was sold be willing to share that data?  If we get enough cars, original dealerships and J numbers we may be able to put together a skeletal structure of the manner in which these cars were distributed.  This might help with narrowing down the production number.

I'll play... My Superbird is J98437 and was sold new at O.R. Mitchell Chrysler-Plymouth in San Antonio, Texas...

Allen

[Alaskan_TA]

Just in case it helps...

The Vehicle Order Number (VON) was the number that Chrysler used to track the car order, build & delivery.

For the 1970 model year, the J prefix was used on Y39 (special order) cars.

Of course, this included Superbirds. It also included 999 - Special Order Paint cars. Since the Petty Blue 'Birds were 999, they have a slightly different VON prefix than "normal" 'Birds.

[hemigeno]

If the Daytona VON number pattern (or lack thereof) is any indication, the J Number won't likely point to either a specific originating dealership or even a general geographic area.

I spent hours and hours trying to make heads or tails of the Daytona Invoice list.  When you boil it all down and sort them through, what you find is that they would do batches of cars from a particular region, and then suddenly jump to another random region.  The size of these regional "batches" varied widely too, and towards the end of the list there were isolated cars from different regions all mixed in with one another.  Within these regional "batches", sometimes cars from the same dealership were sequential in VON but not in VIN, sometimes sequential in both, and other times there was no correlation in either.

That doesn't mean the Superbirds weren't done much more methodically, but inconsistency is the only consistent thing with the Daytona pattern.

[nascarxx29]

When it comes to the daytona its random inconsistencies

[nascarxx29]

And the superbirds #1920 nascar list by its number pages indicates no vin groups or where cars went to certain areas.And exisiting cars are not in it .So not much can be gained from it http://wwnboa.org/vindb.html

[Wingnut426]

What about undercoated cars going to certain regions because of the climate?  My Hemi 'bird came from Ca., NO undercoat.  Pete

[nascarxx29]

Good ? winter zoned superbirds .Remember that superbird in April 70 car life roadtest during the snow.I was thinking if its not undercoated its going to rust from salt and snow years to come its gonna be hurtin .Unrelated note I had this picture is this the former Wingnut 426  white hemi bird

[Redbird]

Brennan,

Thank You for all your work and thoughts on the Superbird serial #'s and J #'s! Really well thought out. I wish you would post here what you had in Mopowerstyle the serial # sorting you did. Absolutely fantastic.

The unrelated note that is a completely unrelated item, that is Jim Fredericks car-in a museum-originally a yellow car.

Back to the real item here please.

[nascarxx29]

Another thing is on 2 dayonas Ive known 356509 and 356510 indentical twin cars .J number 1 apart.And thats random .As I seen them have close vin and way high J numbers?.And seen that on superbird .Theres seems to be no exact science

[Redbird]

I would be very interested in the J#'s and info on the first 5 Superbirds, especially in context of cars #6-10 and #11-22 on the 1920 list.

On the aerowarriors web site, under what's new 7/1/2009 there is really interesting information. The Minutes of Coordinators Meeting 10/20/1969 has an item that says there was 1 body in white and 5 pilot cars, Superbirds. On the 1920 list, car #1 was received 10/17, car #2 received 10/24, car #3-5 received 10-29. Car #1 wasn't shipped until 12/19 so where did it sit all that time? Reading through the memos posted on aerowarriors 7/1/2009 it seems like they might have worked out production difficulties on these first 5 cars before they ramped up production. Someone must have the J#'s on any of the first 5 cars.

Were these first 5 cars then sent out to the motorsports press? Is the white exterior car with bucket seats seen in the Chrysler press photos one of these cars? It is photographed at a sandy site where Chrysler brought other cars for promo work. Or were the press cars pulled off the lot from general production. Info-J#'s, broadcast sheets, and fender tags on the first 5 cars-as well as comparing them to later cars would be interesting.

Was the BIW car not given a fender tag, broadcast sheet etc. and just used for mockups for drilling and fitting fixtures when they figured out how to build the cars? Maybe it was never even completed, just a fixture mule.

[nascarxx29]

And when I researched actual 69 daytona dealer ads from 69-.Alot of those dealers were not even on the daytona shiplist

[nascarxx29]

Speaking of mystery white superbirds.Can this car be collaberated ( # 2 in production

What happened to this Hemi superbird
« on: September 19, 2008, 02:27:58 PM » Quote Modify  

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Saw this on another site


Loc: dublin ohio   Re: Does anyone know what happened to
   



i always wonderred what happened to that white Hemi Superbird (#2 in production)that was given to Bill France from Chrysler.

last time i saw it was at a dealer in Atlanta in the late 80's,and asking price was 125K back then

[nascarxx29]

[nascarxx29]

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,27147.msg298090/topicseen.html#msg298090
Between the 2 brands of wing cars allocation what factors were used to determine who got them and how many

La Flam car RM23VOA170844 Don Horrow car RM23VOA167121.

[Arnie Cunningham]

Greetings All,

Thank you for all the replies.  I will go back through my saved web photos and pull out as many cars as I can.  I will add any cars I get from this thread to a spreadsheet and post it to my website.  It may take a few months to gather enough cars and draw conclusions but it could be quite enlightening.

Thanks again,
Brennan R. Cook

[nascarxx29]

Glad It helped I might be able to gather up more J numbers

[FJ5WING]

Dave what do you want me to PM, the VIN?

here is my J number....J98906

[nascarxx29]

Ok by me Dave send it whatever you got prior owners name to see what can be looked up

[nascarxx29]

[nascarxx29]

[70Sbird]

Brennan,
here is mine:
Scott

[hotrod98]

Mine is J97184. I've traced the car back to El Paso, TX in 1979.

[nascarxx29]

Unrelated to the J # superbirds If your still compiling misc data Arnie . Column auto daytonas and vin sequences in this link
Re: Daytona Question!
« Reply #46 on: September 17, 2007, 09:00:41 AM » Quote 

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Sorry for chiming in late to your question, Barry...  I didn't have the chance to check my records until this morning (I keep them here on the office PC).

So far, I have a record of 16 column-shifted automatic Daytonas -- but I don't have full Fender Tag information on all those 16 cars much less all of the known-to-exist cars.  All of the ones that had been mentioned in this thread were already logged as column-shifted cars, except that Danny's dad's former car is 409045 (I'll bet this week's paycheck that Danny quoted that VIN from memory, which I probably couldn't do for any other cars but my own    )

It is interesting to see some of the patterns emerge, such as what Barry alluded to with 402978 and 402971.  A few other close VINs from that list of 16 cars are 402961, 402983 and 402984.  The more information we can compile, the better the overall picture will become

[jwilson61]

Just found this thread and would like to add a j number, any info any one has would be appreciated  J97419.. vin . RM23V0A179724  FY1 E87 D21  p6XA TX9  V19 V88 C16 26  and a lot of other numbers above these on tag  122   083  676  22134    177562  any one know what I have here.. Thanks

[68pplcharger]

 

[1RareBird]

Just found this thread and would like to add a j number, any info any one has would be appreciated  J97419.. vin . RM23V0A179724  FY1 E87 D21  p6XA TX9  V19 V88 C16 26  and a lot of other numbers above these on tag  122   083  676  22134    177562  any one know what I have here.. Thanks

Well, from your post you have a yellow, 440+6, 4-speed, black interior with buckets and console, dana rear with 3.54 gears.

[rainbow4jd]

Brennan, like always thanks for what you do

I'm speaking from the Ford perspective here which is likely similar to that of Chrysler.   

Dealers used to mail or hand deliver an order spec sheet (a template with the options desired inked in) to their zone manager who would also travel around and collect orders directly (most often from the metro or larger volume dealers).    Initially the dealer name and town was all that was needed, then as the automotive industry exploded after WWII - it became necessary to streamline the ordering process.   In the early 60s (I think, maybe earlier) dealers started to get assigned sales codes.   These generally has a regional prefix.   For example, I think Cincinnati Region is 47 or 44 for Ford.   So a Dealer code would start out as F47XXXXX - with the Xs being numerics.     So the order forms just had the dealer code, with the build form, and the dealer signed it at the bottom - handed it to the zone rep - and that generated an order.   It went into that dealer's bank of orders - a manually sorted file that the zone office would help organize and send to the manufacturing plant.

Eventually, computer ordering came into play - the collected orders would be INPUTTED by a data control person in the zone office from the order template form.   This person was called a SCHEDULER

Initially an order simply was assigned an ORDER BANK NUMBER until it was "scheduled"  - meaning its receipted but Ford hasn't committed to building it yet.   A dealer was encouraged to have MANY more orders in the bank than what they were expecting to get actually built.  Thereafter, once the dealer allocation was determined - i.e. dealer F47XXXX gets 2 Fairlanes - the scheduler would look in the order bank and check dealer priority codes to see if there were retail or stock orders.   The scheduler made all the decisions of what got built and what didn't BASED ON WHAT COMMODITIES THE PLANT WOULD SAY THEY COULD BUILD.    In some cases, what the plant thought they could build and actually build varied - and that generated weird cars - like "Hey, we got this Boss 429 engine left over, can we put it in this 4 door Galaxy station wagon?"

The key thing to know (again from Ford perspective was) AS SOON AS THE VEHICLE WAS SELECTED FOR BUILD - it got a VIN NUMBER.   At that point - it became a living car (even if it wasn't built yet).   THEN... internal codes were assigned that dictated how all the parts came together to build the car.

With Chrysler those may have been build sequence numbers and perhaps J codes.    All they did was "direct" the car through the plant - AT FORD THEY HAD NO SPECIFIC REGIONAL DESIGNATIONS BUT HERE'S HOW UNINTENTIONALLY REGIONALIZATION MAY HAVE OCCURRED.

Remember, the scheduler?    The scheduler is building cars for dealers in THEIR region.   They have a pool of VIN numbers sent to them - for example, on BOSS 429 Mustangs - the Cincinnati Zone might have gotten 15 of these to build for dealers running from Columbus OH, to Bristol Tennessee.    The scheduler is just going down the VIN list in numerical sequence.    IF two closely located dealers happen to both have an allocation for 1 Mustang - they might have each gotten one separated ONLY by a single digit.     Note:  Scheduling was done weekly, so 1 dealer might get allocation in week 1, and the adjacent dealer in week 2 - so many VINS might have been used by then.

Schedulers assigned VINS - based on available commodities - and sent the scheduled units to the plant for build.   There was no intentional regionalization by the plant - but once VINS were sent to schedulers - that scheduler WAS working out of a single geography.

Later on it all became computerized and VIN numbers would be assigned at the plant - not by schedulers.   This pretty much eliminated any regionalization.

AGAIN - THIS IS THE FORD PROCESS - but i suspect that Chrysler and GM was almost the same.   It's not rocket science - its just basic manufacturing.

[Arnie Cunningham]

I don't know if I am the only one who finds the above information interesting, but I do.  Thank you for spelling out the process.
Can you give some thought to how the process would have played out with Superbirds which, more or less, were forced on the dealers.
You may have seen this document.  http://aerowarriors.com/cda/cda_110669.html
It shows regional and sub-regional distribution (intended anyway) of 1850 Superbirds.  My suspicion is that the remaining 75 cars were those
allocated for Canada.

Any input is appreciated,
Brennan

[Redbird]

I grew up in Minneapolis/St. Paul. There were no winged cars there in the mid 1973-1978 (and up to the mid 1980's). Well actually there was one yellow 6-bbl car just off University Ave. in St. Paul. In about 1977 I found another yellow 4-bbl car owned by Ed Waldraff (sic). Ed had a letter in his glove compartment from the Gov.-Wendell Anderson telling him the car had to be fixed, no front bumper. The Plymouth dealership had cut through the nose and fit a Barracuda bumper on it. The car, with a picture, was in the DSAC in the late 1970's early 1980's newsletter after I found it.

How this relates to the list in the previous post is: the list shows 66 cars allocated to the Minneapolis Region. There is a similar list in an old WW or DSAC newsletter or something showing almost none of the Minneapolis cars being sold. I am of the belief that the Minneapolis cars (Minnesota) were sold in the Dakotas, Iowa, West Wisconsin.

To separate this story from urban legend. The DSAC picture of the car from back in the day and the sales numbers on the sales list. It will come to me where the other list was published.

[Redmanf1]

Mine has a J number and it was a local MI car.

[nascarxx29]

this it redman   http://detroit.craigslist.org/mcb/cto/4988573276.html

[Redmanf1]

nascarxx29,  yes that is it.


Nelson