AOS Job Number - Update

[Donald Terry (38740)]

There was a thread a few weeks ago concerning AOS job numbers, and I have another update. For some time now I have been collecting examples of 65 AOS job numbers in order to determine the significance of the letter designation that is unique to AOS bodied cars.

I just located another example. VIN 123357 (late July 65) has job number W104. Others in my survey include a March car with an "M", two mid-May cars with a "Q", an early June with a "T", a late June with "U", and now a late July with a "W".

So we now have six examples ranging from March 65 through July 65, and all of the letter designations progress in alphabetical order. At this point I think it is becoming pretty clear that AOS job numbers ran from 1-500 with the letter designation advancing with each new series of job numbers; i.e. A1-500, B1-500, C1-500, etc.

Just an interesting bit of Corvette trivia.

Don Terry

[Dwight Paul (3542)]

Re: AOS Job Number - Update

Don:
I am very curious about the job number mystery. My late March(March 31st)car has the job number of M335.
First question that must be answered is, how many AOS bodies were produced in 1965? and at what monthly rate?
If there were about 1000 AOS bodies per month supplied to the production line, then your theory fits....two letters per month with each letter running to 500.
That would fit precisly with the production number on my car.

DP

[Donald Terry (38740)]

Re: AOS Job Number - Update

Dwight,

Yes, I did analyze the production of AOS bodies versus the total production over time, and it is consistent. AOS was responsible for almost exactly 50% of the total body production for 1965 (11835 AOS vs. 11771 STL). Your job number of M335 would have been the 6,335 AOS body built. Your March 31st build date would mean that your VIN is somewhere around 13,900. So dividing the total production of 13,900 by 2, we would expect that you would have the 6950 AOS body built. So 6,335 versus 6,950 leaves a discrepancy of a little over 600. Interestingly, when I calculate the July 29 car (job number W104), I found a similar discrepancy of 575 bodies. When I calculated my job number versus VIN, I came up with a discrepancy of 533 bodies.

So what accounts for the discrepancy of 500 - 600 bodies? I believe this represents the rail time from Iona to St. Louis. For example my body build date is 5/5/65 (J05), and estimated build date by VIN of 5/13/65. So when we factor in a few days of rail time, we get very close to matching up. There are too many variables to have body build and VIN match up perfectly, but I feel the correlation is close enough to validate the hypothesis.

Are we havin' fun yet?

Don