Fremont Assembly Plant, Fremont CA

GM built cars at the Fremont CA plant from 1963 to 1980.  In that time many cars from Olds, Buick, Chevorlet and Pontiac rolled off the assembly line. While GM had home plants for all their makes, Oldsmobiles being in Lansing.  Fremont built them all under one roof.  They did things very differently there.   One huge mystery is the Fremont cowl tag.  The tags are very different from the other GM assembly plants.

Lansing MI built 442

Fremont CA built 442

Fremont didnt go to the Lansing shaped tag until 1966. You can see that Lansing used the code system.  This info was used by Fisher Body.  Fisher body only stamped codes on the tag that deviated from the base no option model car.  Since the 442 got holes in the quarter panel for the scoops, the code 4V was stamped on the tag to show that process had been done. Fremont assembly used a tracking system based on broadcast cards and build sheets. One of the big mysteries is what the ACC. ##### means on the cowl tags. The example above has ACC. 23667 stamped on it.  This code has nothing to do with options. Page down to read about what this number represents. The Lansing build 442 in the above tag was the 24,820 Cutlass hardtop coupe built in Lansing for the model year 1965.  The above Fremont 442 was the 4,268 Cutlass hardtop coupe made in Fremont for the year 1965.  This number represents the body style produced, not the 442 produced. The data tag and build sheet below are from a 1965 442.  The car was built at the Fremont CA plant.  The ACC code is 20936.  This code shows up in the Manifest Seq. Number box in the upper right hand corner of the buildsheet.

All 4 makes of cars had these ACC numbers.   The number represents the total number of cars, by make, produced at Fisher body.  The above is from a 65 Chevelle. The ACC numbers increased as the year passed. So the later the car the higher the number, for the most part.  Sometimes cars were dated to be built but didnt get built until a later date. Fremont tags were not painted.  They were attached when the body reached the body bank at the final assembly area.  At this point the final line build sheets, which were generated from the build order, were printed when the clerk in the body bank scheduled the body assembly for its final line sequencing. Once the ACC numbers reached 6 places they reset to zeros.  Chevrolet will have a rolled over ACC number of around 8,000. Pontiacs will have a ACC number that tops out around 68,000, and Oldsmobiles will be around 38,000.

The second place that the Fremont tags are different from the Lansing tags are the interior trim codes, TR on the tag. The first 3 numbers are the same, they are the Fisher trim code for the interior.  This code was specific to the model of car.  The next number, on this tag 10, is Oldsmobiles dealer sales code for the interior.  Its not known why Fremont stamped both codes on their tags.  Below is a chart from a Oldsmobile dealer order sheet showing the interior trim codes for each color, on each body style the 442 was offered on.

The next Fremont only code is the wheel color code.  Cars that used steel wheels and poverty caps got a third letter in the paint code.  The plant used enamel paint instead of laquer to paint the wheels according to this code.  Fremont used the third letter system until July 1965. The last different feature was a hand stamped code that was hammered into the upper right corner of the tag.  This number is found in the ZONE box on the buildsheet.   Its not known what this ZONE was.  Its not the dealer zone because my car has 11 stamped on it, which was Wisconsin.

Below is an example of the very hard to find Fremont buildsheet