I am currently trying to restore a '67. When I received my PHS documents, there are engine production stats and some stats about yearly production of coupes vs ragtops. PHS goes into good detail about the breakdown of the '67 engines, carbs, transmissions and codes - but I have not been able to find any resources that match-up the drivetrains to the chassis. Can anyone direct me to info decribing how many 400 4spd verts vs 400 automatics were made. Thanks. - John

There was not a breakdown in colors or 4 speed/autos.

If I were to fathom a guess for verts, probably a 8-10 to 1 ratio of autos over 4 speed.

Thanks for the feedback, I have found it surprising when cars get listed as "one of only x number 326 HO verts made," etc...

Well, that is somewhat different. Yes, there is a breakdown of 6 cylinder 1 bbl, 6 cylinder 4 bbl, 326, 326 HO, 400 etc, but not how many 326 HO manual meridian turquoise. No hard data on color or transmission type based on engine for 67 and as well, coupe/vert. I don't remember having production numbers or seeing them for 67. 68 and up was broken down into the 16 different engine sizes and transmission types.

I can make a general assumption that my HO was 1 of 1415 manual in 68, but not able to further break down from there coupe/vert and color.

Vikki may be able to help you better as she was working on data roughly to that effect.

As far as I know, any information for first gens that purport to state 1 of xxx factoring in color, style and engine are using interpolation.

For instance, 3 out of 10 1968 Firebirds were Verdoro Green. 2 out of 10 were convertibles. 2 out of 10 were 400s, 4 out of 10 400s had 4 speed (all numbers are hypothetical). If you have a 1968 Verdoro Green Firebird 400 convertible with a 4 speed manual transmission and there were 80,000 built, you could hypothetically say your car is one of 4800 Verdoro Green convertibles, and one of 6400 400 4 speed Firebirds (coupe and convertible). By taking 6% (color/body) of the 6400 400 4 speed, or 8% (drivetrain) of the 4800 green converts, you could say your car is 1 of 384. Is it? Who knows. Does that make it more rare than an original '69 Trans Am? By the numbers, possibly yes. But that does not increase its value.

Once computerized records were retained in database format, it became simple to query the database to determine how many of this and how many of that were combined.

I do not have access to sufficient factory data to even begin to sample color ratios. I hope PHS is datalogging as they process PHS reports, including cars not requested.

I know you do!

Have you ever called PHS and asked?

I've talked to Jim a couple of times, but I didn't get any indication whether they were plugging the info into a database, or if they would make any of the production information public at any time.

Any registry gathering data now could give some rough ideas on color ratios, but nothing I'd feel comfortable with passing along. Although it is widely quoted that approximately 3 out of 10 1968 Firebirds WERE Verdoro Green, my collection is 50% when cars were selected without preference to any color.

1 '67 Coronado Gold
3 '68 Verdoro Green
1 '68 Meridian Turquoise
1 '69 Goldenrod Yellow

Mattison said appx 35-40% 67 and 8 were Verdoro green FWIW.

Last year when I met Jim Wangers and he signed my air cleaner lid, he told me the same thing about the Vedoro Green (about 4 of 10) for 67-68. He also told me that was his all time favorite color and when he asked me about my trim code, I told him that my car was originally Vedoro Green w/ blk vinyl top w/ deluxe interior he asked me when I was going to paint it Vedoro Green. LOL

If I am able to hang on to my car it will in fact one day be Vedoro Green as I have come to love the color when a black vinyl top is also on the car...

As stated in the chat on the Research thread, unless GM suddenly releases actual production data, we are left speculating based on retrospective data, which even if all FGFs survived, leaves us with significant sampling error...

As stated sure. Both Mattisons see every PHS request that comes to them. As well, one can get a pretty good idea or general overview from those requests.

It is not difficult to determine a rough estimate based on color, especially when the color discussed was large production.

I would agree with the comment above if color is dispute were Pink Mist, Coronodo Gold or Linden Green and someone made a rough figure estimate.