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Paper records

The Protect-O-Plate, the build sheet and the SPID label are the records that were never stamped into metal. They are the ones most likely to be missing, and the easiest to pair with a car they never belonged to.

1965–1972

Protect-O-Plate

A small embossed metal or plastic plate, physically like a credit card, issued with every new GM car from 1965 through 1972. Dealers stamped its embossed data onto warranty paperwork with a mechanical imprinter, which let GM validate warranty claims without looking the car up separately.

What it records

  • Vehicle serial number
  • Engine build date, type and horsepower
  • Transmission type and build date
  • Rear axle ratio and build date
  • Exterior color and interior trim codes
  • Build month
  • Carburetor type
  • Installed options

Where to find it

Issued with the owner's paperwork, not fixed to the car, which is why so few survive with the vehicle. When a car sold, the dealer added the buyer's name, address and sale date on a Dymo label.

A Protect-O-Plate is loose paperwork, so it corroborates other records rather than standing on its own.

All

Build and broadcast sheets

Paperwork that rode down the assembly line with the car, telling line workers what to install. It was never meant to stay with the finished vehicle: the intended practice was for a worker to discard it at the end of the line.

What it records

  • The options and equipment scheduled for that specific body
  • Sequence and scheduling information used on the line

Where to find it

In practice sheets were frequently stuffed somewhere in the car and never removed: behind a seat, in the seat springs, under the dash, inside a door panel, or lying on top of the fuel tank. Survival is strongly plant-dependent. Los Angeles (Van Nuys) cars more often have a sheet left on top of the gas tank, while Norwood cars very rarely have one at all.

"Build sheet" and "broadcast sheet" are related but distinct documents with overlapping, not identical, information. The Norwood-versus-Van-Nuys survival difference is informed enthusiast consensus rather than a counted statistic, so a missing sheet on a Norwood car tells you nothing.

1967–2024

Service Parts Identification label

A label listing factory-installed options by RPO code, alongside the VIN and paint/trim codes. It existed so dealer service departments could order the right parts without disassembling the car to check.

What it records

  • VIN
  • Paint and trim codes
  • Most factory-installed options as RPO codes

Where to find it

Location varies by generation. The back of the glovebox door is the most commonly cited spot on first- through fourth-generation cars, with door jamb and trunk-lid or spare-tire-cover locations also used depending on year. On sixth-generation cars GM's 2017 owner's manual puts the label in the trunk; the 2018 and 2023 manuals say a barcode on the certification label on the center (B) pillar may carry the same information, and that the trunk label is where to look when a car has no barcode.

The label lists most options, not all of them, so an option absent from a SPID label was not necessarily absent from the car. It is also only a label, which can be replaced and is reproduced commercially.

Read the option codes on the label

Every three-character option code that GM's Camaro kits document, with each meaning and the model years it applied to. Several codes changed meaning (G92 was a high-altitude axle in 1975 and a performance ratio later, and Z28 was a package before it was a model), so give the model year when you know it. Nothing you paste leaves your device.

Did you know

  • GM's own explanation of the Protect-O-Plate, reproduced in the 1967 kit from a Chevrolet manual revised in April 1982, says the plate is imprinted at the plant. It is thin on options: it codes only major extra-cost RPO equipment, each as a single digit, and Corvette plates carry none.
  • The month-of-build character on a Protect-O-Plate is its own alphabet. On 1967 plates August 1966 through July 1967 run V, L, R, K, Z, S, P, W, N, Y, T, X; 1968 plates use 8, 9, 0, N, D, then 1-7. It isn't the cowl tag's 01-12 plus A-E or the transmission's A-T alphabet, so S means January on a 1967 plate but November on a transmission stamp.
  • CRG describes how the plate was made and how it degrades as evidence. Data is stamped as a mirror image so the dealer's imprinter prints it the right way round; 1967-68 plates also show the paint codes; and a replacement plate issued when the warranty transferred carried no drivetrain data, just the VIN, owner, warranty period, mileage in hundreds and start date. Canadian 1967 plates were plastic with minimal data.
  • A 1988 Popular Hot Rodding article reprinted in GM's 1969 kit says Chrysler, Ford and GM told collectors they couldn't supply original invoices by VIN, though Pontiac would look up 1968-and-later cars from microfilm. It's a snapshot of 1988 policy, and it shows the window-sticker paper trail then ran through first owners and selling dealerships.
  • A 1969 window sticker prints the paint as a four-digit code plus a two-letter suffix: Dover White reads 5911CC, where the leading 5 marks Camaro, per CRG. The 911 matches 'Code 911' in GM's February 1969 Z11 bulletin, while the cowl tag shows 50-50. The 1969 kit also carries a 1988 ad for custom-made window sticker reproductions, so reproductions have been sold for decades.
  • By 2001 the SPID label lists seven items: VIN, engineering model number (division, line, body style), interior trim and decor level, exterior paint number, paint technology, special-order paint colors and numbers, and vehicle option content. GM's kit also says that if a manual transmission's ID label is missing or unreadable, the SPID is the record to use to identify the transmission.
Sources for these details