Oh Dear! Have I led anyone astray? I seem to recall--maybe ten years ago or so or more--that the only figures for production of any sort found, were for 1953 production. This, I think, had been contributed by someone who worked at KF at the time, and kept a carbon? copy showing production by 'month'. My memory is *very* tenuous here....perhaps it only applied to the full size Kaisers, but not the HJ/Allstate?? so, for the full size cars, at least, with some degree of certainty, the SCHED & ITEM and this info could more or less determine when a certain car was built with some intuition and deduction of the process used at KF.
Everything else had been lost in the fire/flood at KW in 55? Including the AMP car, which was saved although the "paper mache" paperwork was thrown out. So, unless some other documentation somehow turns up in someone's private files, no real hope of getting any other figures for other years. Thats what I recall fuzzily. I remember reading this and thinking that my (at the time) 53 Manhattan had likely been built in the 2-3rd week of a certain month, like October, but definitely not really near my date of birth in September 53
Around that time--*I think*--maybe it was Jim Betts was giving his informed opinion on the Portland production. Jim, if it was he, had done quite a bit of solid detection and deduction of the information on Sched Item to serial# and body numbers used in the Portland Virginians and some felicitous timing/production co-incidences.
There were also bits of information on other years and models--ISTR the production of the first 6 51 Frazer hardtops?/convertibles? and how all subsequent ones had Hydramatic, rather than stick. Part of this was related to getting the adaption done to the transmission hump so that the Hydramatic could fit in the early bodies. And bits and pieces of the KF161 production based on various moves which were known dates.
Thats it--its all fuzzy.
