Opinions on POP

[fsc66]

Helping a previous customer who bought another 69 Corvette. Tank sticker shows 00 502 which is: GM Motor Div Engineering Center. Car is not a high perf car: L46 has A/C and good bit of options. My thoughts for an Exec at the plant.
Now POP is an original has the motor code, engine, rear axle, sold to person's name but Red stamp of Dealer shows: GM Engineering at the same address. My understanding is that the Execs used the cars and then sent them to a local dealer to be sold, Yet dealer shows at same address. Ever hear of GM Engineering selling car outright to the public?
POP attached very hard to read, only figured it out having the zone and code and address:
30003 VAN DYKE WARREN MI
Build date of car was approx: June 27, 1969, POP sale date was: 7/2/69.
If this person was an Exec or worked at the GM Plant, did they make a POP for a GM Employee?



Thanks,
Paul

[scuncio]

It does seem odd that the engineering center would be on a POP. These days all GM's manager/exec driven vehicles are invoiced through a dealer of the employee's choosing when an employee purchases a vehicle out of the company fleet.

[TAR6569]

I'm fairly certain I've seen POPs issued by the engineering center before. Any of the GM plants or centers could have issued them for employee purchase. If the car was an executive demo then yes, it would have been sold to "first" owner after 3 months. But a lot of cars were bought by regular GM employees, just through the GM location they worked at. I've seen some police car POPs where the issuing dealer was the Lordstown Plant

[scuncio]

That’s interesting. It’s very different today. I’m surprised the dealer lobby would allow GM to sell direct, even if it were to employees.

[TimG]

That's interesting, I'd love to see the tank sticker. Sometimes they have the individuals name or the class of employee listed.
Thank you for posting the POP. It could have been a demo with steep discounts to the employee that it was intended for.

[fsc66]

Little blurry, no name just what it says.
My interpretation:
Chevy Eng Ctr GM Prov GD FT
Dev

OK; Chevrolet Engineering Center GM Proving Grounds FT??
DEV ?? Development?

[Kurt S]

Pretty common to see the GM organization stamp the POP and not the dealer. My SS396 is stamped the same way. And sales date is the initial delivery date. I've seen overseas orders stamp the POP too.
Lots of uses of cars in GM back then: pool cars, managers, development.
That one looks like it went to the proving grounds for development. Could be something like testing AC radiator performance, who knows....

[fsc66]

If it did go to the proving grounds for testing, why would it shows the buyer’s name on the POP? Didn’t vehicles go to the proving grounds for testing and then later sold either by GM or by a local dealer? The sale date on the POP is just a few days after the build date, so why any ownership at all until after testing.....? Strange...
Still have not heard back from original buyer, hopefully he contacts my customer....

[TimG]

Thank you for posting the tank sticker. Most of the engineering (Zone 00 Dealer 502) tank stickers I have in my files have a name on them, but not all. As Kurt said, there were many uses for these cars. This is a fairly late car, so I'd think any development and testing would be concluded for 1969. It's all very interesting. Nice document.

[firstgenaddict]

Nice colors and well equipped... Can Am white over Red guts with whitelines.

[Kurt S]

The date on the POP is the in-service date. Which is not the same as when the car was sold.
The owner's name is supposed to be on the POP. So that's no surprise. It was put on the POP when the car was sold.
The box says 'Selling Dealer'. This is where the anomaly occurs. The GM dept put their stamp there, presumably because that's when the in-service date started.
Like I said, I've seen this several times, so it was how the system was supposed to work.

Any car that was to be sold could be tagged by a GM employee (with any leasee getting the right of first refusal). The car would then be transferred to their local dealer to for prep and paperwork. Else the cars were sold at auction. The cars were distributed to auctions over several hundred mile area so as to not saturate the local market. I know some 69's from Detroit were sold in PA.
Ford had a lot that you could peruse to see what had been turned in, but not yet sent to auction. I don't know if GM had something similar in this timeframe.

[fsc66]

Customer has titles dating to 1990 where car is still owned by same person who now resides in FL......

Paul