Engineers Manual

[rgshafto]

Here's an interesting item on eBay: 190191714415. Any ever see one before or know what the purpose of such a manual was? Or every see one for this or any other year? The description is as follows:

1936 Pontiac Engineering Story and Specifications Manual; This original factory manual was printed by the Engineering Department of Pontiac Motor Company for the introduction of the new 1936 Pontiac. The manual covers all models of 6 and 8 cylinder Pontiac `including two door sedan, four door sedan, standard coupe, cabriolet, two door touring, and four door touring. The manual has engineering specifications, data, features, standard equipment, accessories, etc.. The size is 8 X 11 with 100 pages including original factory photo's with a real leather binder.

[Guest Pete Woodruff]

I've never seen one before, but I'd sure like to find one for 1940. It appears to be filled with very interesting information from what I saw in the e-bay listing. It's amazing what items surface on e-bay that I've never seen in 30+ years of swap meets and car shows; especially considering I'm always searching for anything Pontiac!

[carbking]

Bob - Thanks for posting, as I had not yet seen this one on Ebay.

Pete - the 1940 version has a shot of the drivers door on the cover, is dark blue and white, wire spiral-bound, and has 116 pages.

According to Pontiac documentation, the first one was printed in 1927.

Jon.

[carbking]

These were not produced in so low numbers as the Ebay seller suggested, as each dealer could have ordered them (at a price, they were not free to the dealers). Since this copy bears a GM library stamp, my guess would be that 6 were allocated to the GM library, and that is where the Ebay seller picked up the 6.

Pontiac through the 1930's preached engineering superiority, and it was not unusual for a dealer album to be called an engineering book.

While these items could have been ordered by any dealer, few early ones survive today, as most dealers then (and now) trashed this type of material each fall when the new year's information arrived.

Generally speaking, each year would have a large (8 1/2 x 11 or as large as 11 x 16) "dealer" album as well as a salesman's pocket book, generally called a "facts book". Exceptions to this may be post WWII; as I have never seen or heard of the large manual for the years 1946~1949. If any have one, I would delight in being informed.

All before 1950 are scarce, although there is both a 1939 and 1941 on Ebay at this time.

From memory, we are still missing a couple of years in our library; 1928 and 1933, plus we need to upgrade some of the early years.

Beginning in 1957, Pontiac divided the large album into two. One was a "presentation" album, with sales and specification data; the other a "colors and interior" album, with paint chips and interior swatches.

The 1958 album was in the form of a fold-out attache case. I believe there is one of these currently on Ebay.

In 1959, Pontiac reverted back to the 1957 format.

These albums hold a wealth of information, but one needs to understand, especially on the later ones, that updates were sent to the dealers throughout the year. Generally, the dealers were less than proficient in updating the albums; thus most albums will be missing the mid-year updates. For example, virtually all of the 1957 albums are missing the Bonneville update.

Jon.