Help with a bizzare '86 SSP - Texas car (not necessarily DPS)

[ImEvil1]

Originally Posted by ChrisL

Mick suggested I run the other 4 cars in that list of consecutive 5 that it is in, which is a great idea, I just haven't had the chance to yet. If I was made of money, I'd just order Marti reports for all of them and see what colors they were, etc; but that's cost prohibitive at this point.

Why would you want to do that? Just to know what colors the other cars were, or are you trying to verify that they were all SSP cars?

[ChrisL]

My thoughts are that if they are all 1E (silver) then they must have been for a department that used silver cars. If they are assorted, but similarly optioned (IE they are red, blue, silver, black, white but all with gray vinyl interiors) then they might have all been unmarked/more stealthy units... even possibly for DPS.

That's just my imagination running wild. What do you think? Long ago I was told that someone out there had access to all of the DSO special order breakdowns, and that once upon a blue moon he would decode them for people. Is that person still around?

[ImEvil1]

Sounds reasonable. The only thing leaning away from them being DPS cars (for me) is the spread in the DSO numbers (not knowing off the top of my head if DPS even ordered/used unmarked cars in '86, or if they ordered the marked and unmarked together if they did use them).

We've heard for years about Jim at PPI having filing cabinets full of DSO info. I don't know if he does or doesn't, but if he does, he hasn't shared the info with anyone.

[ChrisL]

You are probably right Mike, you would think that they would have been ordered in the same back of DPS cars as the regular, if it had been DPS that ordered them. Although there are two batches of DPS orders in '86 (at least 2 batches).

I think you are right about Jim at PPI. Maybe I'll send him a message.

[FoxChassis]

"Standard" Marti Reports have the same door tag data that Deluxe Reports do, just not a door tag image or production statistics.

[ChrisL]

Good thinking FoxChassis! Maybe I'll order one of those, if I can get closer to making the purchase.