NCRS Docs for Impala?

[rsinor]

Unless something has changed they have no plans to do other configurations, the cost of digitization and sorting through a third party source is project prohibitive.

[SeattleCarGuy]

If its cost prohibitive, please raise the price and do it anyway. We'll pay.

[Nasblu]

I am an NCRS member and have had Corvettes and other model Chevys shipping reports done since the service has been offered. I am just curious was there a market study done before this service was offered to determine what Chevy models would be most cost effective to have done? I know that the full-size Chevy following is strong and seems to be only getting stronger with station wagons models becoming more collectible etc. I know that owners(including myself) of these full size Chevys would most definitely pay to have this available. I cannot see how this would not be worth looking into.

[rsinor]

I m no longer involved with NCRS or the Document Service, I can only tell you the decision made was not to include the other configurations because of cost constraints. Those of you that want the process expanded would be best suited to contact your NCRS regional director and pursue it through those channels. The bottom line here is the records include a lot of stuff, I saw 1926 Chevrolet roadster data on the microfiche. Just recognize without support from within the NCRS membership it will be hard to justify the expense of the project.

[mssl72]

So, Roy can you enlighten me (maybe others) on what the document service does when they get a request. Do they go to the microfiche and print it out? Is everything on microfiche or are there piles of paper that need to be gone through too? Is there any kind of order to the mass of information? Where is it all located?

[rsinor]

Originally Posted by mssl72

So, Roy can you enlighten me (maybe others) on what the document service does when they get a request. Do they go to the microfiche and print it out? Is everything on microfiche or are there piles of paper that need to be gone through too? Is there any kind of order to the mass of information? Where is it all located?

It gets very complicated and long to explain, the information is on microfiche. The problem is it is all Chevrolet production, there is 1926 Chevrolet roadster stuff on one page I looked at. so we have 22 cars per page on the microfiche. That's 22 Chevrolets not 22 69 Norwood Camaros. imagine now Chevrolet complete production history. we are talking 100,000's pages of microfiche maybe Millions of pages. We contracted with an outside service to scan these pages and digitize them so we could create a searchable file by VIN. These records ultimately were filtered so that we just have the Camaro, Chevelle, El Camino and Nova production plant records. The initial retrieval some eight years ago was just the Corvette plant, with that we still got light duty, medium duty trucks, Corvair Greenbriers, and Biscayne station wagons because they were all built in St Louis, I digress. This time through the process we refined the scanning process and just pulled 65-72 Camaro, Chevelle, El Camino and Nova records. Its a huge undertaking, time consuming and expensive. the problem becomes a damaged microfiche record may not scan well, some pages are missing there will be holes in the records, etc. the end result is NCRS ends up with Searchable DVD's for year groupings and the groupings are not 1st gen second gen they are when one DVD is full we start a second. so 67-68 Camaro are together and 69 -70- Camaro are together. this is not the same page you see from Canada because when we search a Canadian car all we will have depending on the year is something like zone 21 dealer 000, we know that means Canadian export, if you contact Canada with the vin you will get the stuff you guys are use to seeing from Canada.

The records contain only string identifiers nothing more nothing less, the only thing that will be supplied out of these records in the service is the official production date, GM zone and GM dealer. we then take that information and search the GM dealer directories for the time frame to determine the dealer name, city and state.

Basically with Corvette we could sort on one plant by a S in the VIN, Camaro is two plants N or L. Nova was three plants W, N, L. Chevelle was 8 plants A, B, Z/H,K, L, F, R, G. the expense for sorting the Camaro Chevelle Nova grouping was much, much, more than the initial estimate because of so many plants. to go back again was deemed just not feasible before I left the project now some four years ago..

The records belong to GM, they are housed by GM, NCRS provided information to GM that was beneficial in providing them access they really may not have realized they had. Even after the process was tested and it was proven we could do it, it took years to be granted approval by GM legal to release the data. GM decided what the fees were, not NCRS. GM receives no monetary compensation for this, they did receive the searchable files and have been able to update there dealer directories which were not in the best of shape and still are deficient but improving.

[fastco]

I did receive a reply through that old email contact I had. They were obliging enough to take the vin and do a search, I received back "sorry, we do not have any information on the Impala" Does that mean my Impala? All Impalas? All Full-Size? I don't know. There is obviously a want for these full size records, whether they exist is still unclear. If they do exist, reading the information supplied by Nasblu and rsinor they may feel there is not enough demand to this in a profitable manner. Maybe someday, but the volume of scattered records sounds daunting!!