Didn't you ask any more questions? Sounds like a missed opportunity.
It would be interesting to me if we could hear the rest of the story. Are you still able to ask the people involved some more questions?
Dave (too)
I appreciate all of the questions but you have to remember that these inquiries are being asked almost 50 years after the fact. When these things were happening, they didn't have a future knowledge of what these cars would become. I actually did ask some of those questions but most aspects were not a consideration to those guys at that particular time.
As I'm typing this, I have a couple of FCA managers sitting here discussing these topics. They mentioned a program in the seventies & eighties called OEP. (Overnight Evaluation Program) They said that select manufacturing personnel would take random cars off of the Assembly Line, prior to their final Inspection, with the odometer not yet connected and drive them Home (overnight) to find any problems with the vehicle. This was to complete the final evaluation form. If anything was found to be an issue, the vehicle would be fixed, the odometer connected, the Certification Decal applied to the car and then it would be shipped to be sold as new.
In the late eighties, Chrysler changed the policy to mandate the odometers being connected before they were driven for their finalized testing. There's more to the story but the legalities do not permit me to comment further. Sorry!
