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

This car has come up before, maybe 6 years ago or so on other boards. It's an '86 SSP, with a 57 (houston) DSO (special order 0029).

So the first buck tag reads:
DSO 57 - 0029 Texas
Special Service Package

Door tag and secondary buck tag info go on to show a 5 speed car, 3.08 gear with A/C but the peculiar part is that it was ordered in 1E silver with the charcoal VINYL interior. The car was apparently first registered out of service in Fredericksburg,TX in 1992 and since then it has changed hands a few times. It falls in a batch of 5 consecutive VINs.

So, the question is, any idea what department might have ordered this car? The batch of 5 seems a bit small for DPS, and the combination definitely doesn't fit with DPS. DPS always ordered cloth interiors (I would assume a vinyl interior isn't much fun for an officer who spends all of their time sitting on it) and obviously the color doesn't fit for what DPS typically ordered.

Any ideas?

Maarti report the car.

I might do that if I get closer to striking a deal, but I think it will do little to verify the department. I have the report for my DPS car, and it in no way verifies it as a DPS, it just states what DSO it was, which dealer it was shipped to, and that it was a special paint car (and SSP pkg obviously).

More detective work to be done.

eminger invoice will tell you who ordered it

Hmmm, sounds like a cool one Chris. If you don't want it, let me know how to find it.

Jim, eminger invoices for the '86s have been few and far between. For the 8-10 '86s I've tried to order them for, none have been available.

Chris, I'll PM you.

You can't order an Eminger unless the car is registered/titled in your name anyway.

What is the DSO on your TX car, Chris?

My '86 TX DPS is 57-0114

And you are correct about the Eminger. The only '86 Eminger I have gotten is for my '86 ASC Capri Coupe.

Ok, thanks. I have seen consecutive order numbers for agencies ordering special paint and regular paint cars together, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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

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