66 Covette build date

[Ken Harants]

Where can I find the build date for my 1966 Covette. I understand NCRS publishes these dates.

[Bob R.]

Re: 66 Covette build date

There is no build date listed on this site. Try www.c2registry.org they have one there.

[Jack H.]

Re: 66 Covette build date

Build dates are calculated by interpolating the VIN number of the car. There is information from GM/Chevy that lists the end-of-month production figure by VIN. So, you subtract the beginning of month number from the end of month number and get the number of cars built that month.

Now, the 'art' comes into play. You know how far into the month's build your car should have been, but how many actual work days were there that month and was the rate of production actually uniform each day (line speed up/slow down, added shifts, temporary line shut-down)? That's where different Corvette birthday calculators can give different answers depending on their level of intelligence.

Bottom line, NOBODY has the 'correct' answer because there's simply too many unknown variables. But, these birthday calculators come pretty close (within a few days) of being right...

[Dale S.]

Re: 66 Covette build date

Jack, Could that be why my March 30th 1967(by the registry)has a April 1st 1967 owners manual? Or is it a replacment as I always thought.Dale

[Jack H.]

Re: 66 Covette build date

I guess I don't recall owners manuals being dated month/day/year... There WERE different editions of the books and my recollection is each edition was dated month/year of its release.

Now, I've also yet to see a case where a subsequent edition of the owners manual changed part numbers.... If it didn't change PN then the new edition of the book was 'binned' with the old and they went to cars by random draw from inventory.

Methinks some make to much adoo about which version of an owners manual should be with this/that car. I've seen several cases where the edition changed in say January and cars that shipped in May still went out the door with the 1st vs. 2nd edition book.

But, back to your question, if the birthday calculator says your car was built on March 30th (the last day of a given month), there's little room for interpolation 'slop' as that's a snapshot day of reconning. Still, who's to say your car actually shipped that day?

There WERE cases where this/that vehicle failed some inspection/test on the final line and was pulled into a repair pit. With the 'pressure' on to crank volume out the door for the month end/quarter end production talley, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that cars built on the last day of the month that experienced SIGNIFCANT problems were set aside to cherry pick and get as many easy jobs out the door/shipped as possible....