Well I guess I'm the eternal pessimist then...
Look at it from the General's POV and the situation becomes pretty clear. Is it smarter to spend your company's efforts sorting and archiving thousands of 35 year old documents for cars you've already sold in an attempt to potentially please a handful of "enthusiasts" and make maybe $100 a pop, or instead should you concentrate your efforts on building and marketing profitable vehicles to today's buying public in an effort to keep your already fledgling company afloat for at least few more years?
Seems to me like it's a no-brainer. For GM the project is insignificant both financially and in terms of public relations. GM simply could care less if we "enthusiasts" get our beloved documents or not, and I personally think the process of organizing and "releasing" the documents would prove to cost as much or more than they could ever hope to generate on the sale of such documents.
To be honest, it surprises me that GM of Canada and PHS are doing it at all. You can bet they aren't getting rich doing it either. Seeing as how George Zapora seems to be the lone GM employee doing Canadian documentation for nearly a decade now, it doesn't seem like that department is where the money is being made for the General, nor do I hear anyone singing the praises of GM of Canada or Pontiac for their efforts. Has anyone spent anymore than the $35 GM of Canada or Pontiac asks for documents, or went out and actually bought a new GM car because they were so courteous in providing docs for your collector car? Likely not...it just doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the automotive manufacturing business. It's a bonus for us collectors that they do it, but I doubt it makes much difference for GM of Canada or the Pontiac division on the whole.
It is a shame, but the bottom line is, if it's gonna take more than someone tearing the lid off a box at GM and dumping the records into a scanner, you can bet it won't be happening anytime soon. They simply have bigger fish to fry.
Besides...aren't all the extra "enthusiast" hands at GM supposed to be busy working on our "new" Camaro anyhow?
