The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Canadian AD experts?

I'm going to be putting my truck in it's first full car show this weekend, and on my information sheet I would like to have how many of them were produced. The problem is that my truck is Canadian made and I have no idea how many Canadian Chevrolet 1300 Deluxe pickups were made in early 1955. Does anyone know? Or possibly have a way to find out? My VIN# is 5131415348 if that helps. If possible, I would appreciate knowing where my truck was manufactured as well? Thanks for any help!

Ol'Black, contact George Zapora, Vintage Specialist at GM of Canada: 888-467-6853 (fax: 905-644-5436) and order a 'restoration Package' for your truck (25$).

It contains records of your Canadian built truck, including: trim, paint, date of production AND number produced.

I hope this helps,
whizzerick
Montreal

old black 55,

Serial number: 5131415348

5 = 1955 model year
1 = Chevrolet (9 = GMC)
3 = 1300 series
1 = 116" wheelbase
4 = Pickup delivery (equipment on the chassis)
15348 = vehicle number (15,348th Canadian Chevrolet truck manufactured in 1955)

If/when the get the GM Canada Restoration package, please let us know how many of your model were produced.

Tim

The way I understood it was the 5 is the year, but the 13 denotes series 1300 and 14 means half ton pick up. I could be wrong but in my Chevy book the 1314 is shown as a Canadian half ton.
Good luck in the show. Will that be on Saturday's show in Ladysmith or Sunday's at Mill Bay or Oak Bay? I won't be at either as I am flying over to Abbotsford for the air show.
Bill

technically the way Tim puts it is the way GM designed the CDN numbering system, but it works grouping the numbers - 13 = the series [1/2T Chev, 93 is 1/2T GMC], and 14 = the model [short WB pu, GMC or Chev, 24 is the long WB pu] - the question is with the actual sequence# as they always started with a certain number, like 10001, so it would prolly be the 5,348th truck produced rather than 15,000

Bill

Bill.

I know nothing about Canadian numbers/codes, except for what I found in a General Motors of Canada Ltd. 1954 Chevrolet & GMC Truck Maintenance Manual (Shop Manual).

The 1954 Canadian manual shows that code 00740 for vehicle number = 740th produced in that year.

I have no idea if this numbering system was the same for 1955 first series in Canada.

Tim

This is the best info I could find on Canadian built Chevys on the web.

David Hayward from England has put together an incredible amount of info. You may already know about this site but he has some 2006 updates on this Hemmings Club site.

I was able to find that 17,125 Chevy trucks were produced in Canada in 1955 but I did not find a breakdown by models.

http://clubs.hemmings.com/clubsites/chevytalk/GMhistory/GMofCanada.jpg

This is a big file on Canadian production figures from 1915 onward. If you only have dial up, come back in a day or so to see if it has loaded.

http://clubs.hemmings.com/clubsites/chevytalk/GMhistory/canchev.html

Finallly, this is the index containing the previous two files and a treasure trove of other early Chevy/GMC info.

http://clubs.hemmings.com/clubsites/chevytalk/index1.html

If you find the production numbers for trucks in your resto info and don't see it in his files, think about emailing him and letting him know. He seems like the kind of guy that would enjoy that info.

Ok, it sounds very probable that there were 17,125 Chevrolet trucks made in 1955. It also looks like my truck would be the 5,348th one off the production line, since I imagine out of 17,000 trucks with a mid-year series switch, any truck built after about #8,500 (depends on how many 2nd series were made), was probably a 2nd Series model. Also, olblu49, I'm going to be putting my truck in the Oak Bay Car Show Sunday.

I received the GM Canada package for my 49 many years ago and it said only 6,945 models of that production number were made. Seems awfully low but then it might mean that exact same model/color/trim etc.
Did you enjoy the car show? Were there a few cars there?
Bill

I've been looking at another thread that talks about this GM restoration kit, and it sounds like the package itself is a useful tool. I'm just curious though, does it include records of my personal truck, or just records of that year/model of truck? Both are good, and I'll definitely call them up no matter what, but I don't know if I should expect records of my truck or not. As for the car show, I must say it was a good first show. I was one of only 5 stovebolts there (there were mostly Caddys and English cars) and I had the only inline 6 engine, so of course I popped the hood to let everyone see what a true work horse looks like!

The kit I got from GM Canada was 90% photocopies of American-built trucks using their codes. There was a lot of info which is in the shop manual. to me the only worthwhile item was one sheet of paper addressing my truck. When and where it was built and delivered. Nothing about to whom. Then it told me it had a 216 and how many trucks with that code were built. IMHO I would spend my $25 or is it $50 (plus tax) on something else.
Bill