New VIN list and production chronology uploaded

["ksgrimsr" <knut.s.grimsrud@xxxx>]

With the new edition of the DOD having been compiled, I have also 
had a chance to assemble an updated VIN list and production 
chronology. You can find the materials on the DMCNews web site at 
www.dmcnews.com/faq/n_chron.htm

With this latest release, the production statistics that I computed 
for the available data probably regressed slightly and may not be as 
sound. The reason is that the statistical methods assume the data 
samples are uncorrelated (i.e. that all the VINs collected were 
collected at random and that this randomness results in a uniform 
sample density across the entire VIN space). Because the VIN list 
now includes a lot of data from some of the company records that 
have been discovered, the assumption of uncorrelated samples no 
longer holds. In many cases the company records cover a "batch" of 
sequential VINs, for example, and this results in the distribution 
not being uniform. This is especially the case since there are more 
records available for the '81 cars than for later cars.

The VIN list now contains over 3500 cars in it. As usual there are 
several entries that have discrepancies (for example, the shipping 
manifest indicates it as a grey 5-speed but the DOD record for it 
indicates it's an automatic). Some of the entries with obvious 
discrepancies are marked in the list. Since the data largely comes 
from the DOD, it's best to correct discrepancies at the source by 
submitting corrections to the DOD where possible since corrections 
sent to me end up creating a subsequent discrepancy when the next 
DOD database is merged in.

>From the materials collected thus far, the rarest build combination 
appears to be an '82 black automatic (with black '82 models overall 
being rare). As a whole, '83 automatics are also pretty rare. In 
September '81 the factory cranked out exclusively black cars, while 
in the following month they cranked out exclusively grey cars. In 
August '81 the factory had nearly a completely even distribution 
among the 4 build combinations. The highest manufacturing volume was 
in October '81.

I hope you enjoy the materials.

Knut