Last month I was able to get the last of the records from The L. L. Richardson dealership in Dallas, PA listed in our "found" section. There were records for over 2400 cars trucks in the batch, some cars & trucks have up to eight pages of information! With the last of them listed, we ended 2008 with over 6000 items still waiting to be claimed. Thanks once again to Tom Race at R/T Specialties for saving them & letting me have them.

So, now what?

Well, on the very last day of 2008, I received a box from Jerry in NY State with four volumes of sales records in it from the Barry Dodge dealership in Brockport, NY. Depending on the book, there are 4-5 cars listed per page. Some of the trade-ins also have old state registration slips with them. So, for our item of the month to start 2009 off is a 1970 Duster 340 - VS29H0B431701 - this car was bought by Barry Dodge as a used car in 1973 & was sold to the Morris Motor Co. of Spartanburg, SC in 1974.

If you own this car this record is yours with proof of ownership and proof that the car still exists.

Thanks again Jerry for sending these in!

Barry Washington

January was a great month, we had three more items claimed! All three were membership records from the old Special Interest Auto Club (SIAC). Thanks once again to Tom Quadrini & Jeff Bangert for getting them to me.

This month our found item is a broadcast sheet for a black 1970 AAR Cuda, the VIN is BS23J0B302125

We currently have 1440 AARs recorded in the 1970 Hamtrack Registry, I do not have the paint codes for all of them but so far 27 black ones are known.

This broadcast sheet was sent in by a 1970 Hemi Cuda owner who is hoping to locate a broadcast sheet for his car, so if you have one, please scan it & email it to me. If it matches Dave's car I will gladly put you in touch with him.
Happy Valentines Day kisses to all the Mopar ladies out there from the HH staff!

Barry Washington

For March, our found item is a broadcast sheet for a bright red 1969 Dart Swinger 340, the VIN is LM23P9B227973 - this sheet is in very poor condition overall, but most of the codes are legible.

For those of you who own Swinger 340s from 1969 to 1972, there is a now a Swinger 340 Registry just for you. You can contact Adam via his website at 340Swinger.org

Barry Washington

Hello again, we had two more items claimed last month, including our former IOTM from March of 2007! You can look it up in our previous items of the month section for an update if you like by clicking the link above.

For April our found item of the month is another broadcast sheet. This one is for a Plum Crazy Purple 1970 Challenger convertible, the VIN is JH27L0B276690 This sheet is free to the owner of the car with proof of legal ownership.

Barry Washington

Hello gang,

We did not have any items claimed in April. Our new IOTM for May is a broadcast sheet that was found in a bucket seat for a Plum Crazy Challenger R/T built for Canadian sale.

The VIN on this one is JS23N0B237049 - Thanks to Joe for finding it & sending it in from Ohio.

The sheet is free to the owner of the car with proof of legal ownership.

Barry Washington

Hello again all,

We had two items claimed in May! There were also over 70 new items added to the "found" section last month, so if you have not searched it for your VIN in a while, now would be a good time.

Our new IOTM for June is a broadcast sheet that was found in a bucket seat of a different car. This one is from JS23U0B304090 - a light green 1970 Challenger R/T with black interior, vinyl top & stripes.

The sheet is free to the owner of the car with proof of legal ownership & proof the car still exists.

Barry Washington

Hello again all,

Sadly, we did not have any items claimed in June.

I get asked about VIN sequence as it relates to actual build sequence quite often, so I am going to use our July IOTM to illustrate something for you. Most folks assume that these cars were built in order based on the VIN number. This is a common myth. All of the plants built cars out of sequence for whatever reason, it is something I am researching in-depth for 1970 right now.

Think about this.....

Hamtramck had two assembly lines. So, IF (big if) the cars were built sequentially by VIN, odd numbered cars would have to come from one line, while even numbered cars came from the other. They would also have to time each build EXACTLY so one line did not get ahead of the other to have the cars leave "in order" sequentially.

Did they do it that way? Nope. It would have slowed the lines down to a crawl trying to micro-manage it to that degree.

The actual broadcast sheet sequence numbers have a whole lot more to do with the actual build sequence than the VIN does. As an example, broadcast sheet # 1000001 was printed for BH23G0B100052.

So, right there, for 1970 Hamtramck started 51 VINs behind.

The broadcast sheet number was also referred to as the "Job number".

Back to our July IOTM now, we have a broadcast sheet that was found in a bucket seat of a Challenger T/A (See the March 2007 IOTM for more info) This sheet is for JS23V0B278082;

Note the text I inserted in this photo of the T/A sheet & the R/T sheet that was found in it;

Pretty dang interesting is it not? The Scheduled Production Dates (SPDs) are right out the window, obviously they did not wait three days to produce these two cars back to back. Folks often assume that the SPD is the actual build date & for some cars it MAY be, but truthfully there is just no way to know. This is just one example of this, I have seen it many times now.

Research, as always, continues. If you have an original 1970 Hamtramck broadcast sheet, please contact me with a scan or photo copy. I am trying to figure out what triggered the cars to be built so far out of sequence. The sheets I have seen so far are mostly for the E-Bodies, I would LOVE to see more broadcast sheets for the Valiants & Dusters, it would really help me with my research. Seeing broadcast sheets found in other cars really helps too as you have seen. If you find one for a different car, please let me know what car it came out of.

This sheet is free to the owner of the car with proof of legal ownership & proof the car still exists.

Thanks once again to everyone who has helped out along the way & please have a safe 4th of July!

Barry Washington

Hello again folks,

We did not have any items claimed in July.

Our IOTM month for August is another broadcast sheet, this one is for a black 1970 Cuda 340 with an automatic transmission. The VIN is BS23H0B196595 . Thanks to David for sending this one in!

Barry Washington

Hello again folks,

We did not have any items claimed in August.

For September, we have two items of the month to further illustrate something I touched on with the July item of the month. It generated some interesting conversations & comments, so here is another example of cars being built way out of the VIN sequence.

Juan found these two sheets in the bucket seat back of a 1970 Challenger R/T & mailed them to me since neither one matched his car. The sheets were actually still connected to each other, they had not been torn apart at the perforation. The VINs are JH27G0B343939 & VL29C0B344344. Based on the VINs most folks would assume that the car with the lower VIN was built first. But once again, this is not the case.The VIN numbers on these two sheets are 1005 off, but they were built one right after the other.

Click on the image below to enlarge

The broadcast sheet sequence number was also referred to as the job number. The job numbers on these two sheets are 1068328 & 1068329, so the two sheets were printed sequentially, which would be expected of course since they were found still joined together.

The date on the broadcast sheets (& fender tags) is the Scheduled Production Date or SPD. This is the date that they HOPED to build the car when the order was first entered into the system. Most online decoders (& people who just do not know any better) say it is the actual day the car was built. This is false. In reality, there is no way to know what the actual build day was. The SPD will get you close, usually within three weeks or so as an educated guess for 1970 Hamtramck built cars. This is why some of you have found date codes on some of your original parts that are dated after your SPD. The SPDs on these two sheets are 514 & 515 for May 14 & May 15 of 1970. Note that in this case, the car with the lower VIN was originally scheduled for a 514 build, but the 515 car with the higher VIN car was actually built first according to the job numbers on the broadcast sheets.

Both of these sheets are free to the owners of the cars with proof of legal ownership. Thanks once again to Juan A. for finding these & sending them in.

If any of you have a broadcast sheet for any 1970 Hamtramck car, whether from a 4-door Valiant, Duster, Barracuda or Challenger please contact me with a scan, photo copy or the original as you wish. The more of these I get to see the more blanks I can fill in with the actual build sequence. I have very few sheets on file from Assembly line 2 so far. Help!

Barry Washington

Hello again folks,

We had one item claimed in September.

Our IOTM for October is for a 1970 Barracuda Gran Coupe in Vitamin C with a 383 four barrel & automatic transmission.

This sheet was found in a 1970 440-6 Cuda, the VINS were several thousand apart, so in this case it appears that someone swapped seat backs at some point. If you find (or found) a broadcast sheet in your car for a different car, please let me know?

Thanks to Ed Gagne for sending this one in! If you find a sheet in your car for his Cuda I will put you in contact with him.

This sheet is free to the owner of the car with proof of legal ownership.

Barry Washington

We had three more items claimed in October!

Our IOTM for November is for a 1970 Challenger R/T in Sublime with a 440-6, automatic and a black Bumble Bee stripe. The VIN is JS23V0B199925 , this sheet is free to the owner of the car with proof of legal ownership.

This sheet was found in a Challenger T/A, someone had swapped the rear seat backs in the past. If you find (or found) a broadcast sheet in your car for a different car, please let me know?

Thanks to Dana for finding this sheet & turning it in. If you find a sheet for his T/A I will put you in contact with him.

Barry Washington

Happy Holidays everyone!

We had two more items claimed in November! Our IOTM for December is a broadcast sheet for a 1970 Challenger T/A in Plum Crazy. The VIN is JH23J0B294525 , this sheet is free to the owner of the car with proof of legal ownership & proof that the car still exists.

This sheet was found in a Panther Pink Challenger convertible with a 318.

Barry Washington