history and reference Latest VIN contest

[Conserv]

Tom,

 

I believe Les's info shows the "metal VIN tag deficit" from sometime in late February to some time in May.  My VIN 2742541, April 23, 1976, is certainly one of those so-effected.  There's a thread, with Les's VIN numbers, here somewhere...

 

And well, I admit I actually never tracked the days from manufacture-to-title delivery but I felt they were pretty consistent from the many BMW Archives reports I've seen over the years.  For the sake of capturing some actual data, below are cars for which I happen to have Archives reports in my records.  IF these represent the "norm" -- and this is NOT a statistically-valid sampling -- the range would be 1 to 17 days (without VIN 2762639, which is an outlier within this tiny population, 1 to 11 days), the average of this population being 6.5 days for these twelve cars (without VIN 2762639, 5.6 days).

 

VIN 1567736:  January 28 and January 29, 1969

VIN 1570400:  November 10 and 14, 1969

VIN 1668093:  September 8 and 15, 1969 (mine)

VIN 1671711:  February 3 and February 9, 1970

VIN 2578384:  September 16 and 22, 1971

VIN 2532925:  July 3 and 12, 1972

VIN 2762204:  July 10 and 21, 1972 (mine)

VIN 2762639:  October 10 and 27, 1972

VIN 2762757:  October 19 and 24, 1972 (mine)

VIN 2764448:  July 12 and 17, 1973

VIN 4281520:  March 25 and 29, 1974

VIN 2742541:  April 23 and 26, 1976 (mine)

 

After the title delivery, there were generally five to ten weeks of travel time from Germany to the U.S. retail dealership, depending on ship schedules, Panama Canal schedules, and the physical location of the dealership, e.g., near an East-coast Port of Entry, or some distance from a West-coast Port of Entry.  Six to eleven weeks seems to sum up the usual range of time from manufacturing date to delivery at the U.S. dealership.  My '70 was smokin' fast:  manufactured on September 8, 1969 and delivered to the first owner on October 18, 1969.  He said it arrived at the dealership the day before he took delivery.

 

Again, I wonder if BMW became more casual about title delivery after the risk of transportation shifted from a third party, Hoffman Motors, to its own subsidiary, BMW NA?  If a ship went down with Hoffman's cars aboard, Hoffman bore the loss and BMW AG was not hurt; thus, they wanted to ensure that the risk was transferred prior to shipping.  But if a ship went down with BMW NA's cars aboard, BMW NA bore the loss and hence its parent, BMW AG was hurt as well; it mattered much less if the risk was transferred prior to shipping.

 

IF we could just access that "other" BMW database -- the one that shows delivering dealer and date of delivery to first owner -- we could better judge whether some of these later "title delivery dates" per Archives were occurring AFTER the car had shipped, or even AFTER the car had arrived!  For example, were there at least five weeks between the Archives title delivery date and the retail customer's delivery date?  If not, the title was delivered after the car shipped.  And that would not be consistent with the Hoffman Motors years.

 

As usual, we need more data before we can advance beyond pure speculation!

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

Edited June 6, 2016 by Conserv

[mmichalik]

darrinm1 asked for a picture of the car.  This was a few years ago, before all the body work and hours of long blocking the car.  I've just about got everything done for paint but, the last bit on the nose is going to take me longer then a weekend to complete so, I'm getting my 914 finished first so I have a car to drive.

 

I've got a tiny bit of rust on the front fenders, at the bottom by the doors and I'm thinking I will purchase new ones from Restoration Design.  I got a new front floor pan for the Porsche that was very well done. 

 

Edited June 6, 2016 by mmichalik

[mmichalik]

On 6/6/2016 at 11:27 AM, gastephens said:

Congrats to mmichalik , so far your July 19th is the latest manufacture date.

 

So what do I win?  (other than the booby prize) 

[gastephens]

 

So what do I win?  (other than the booby prize)  [emoji4]

In an ironic twist, your prize for having the youngest BMW 2002 is a neuemotorsports "RESPECT YOUR ELDERS" decal. PM me your address.