Sent to Marti a bit ago for original invoice copy for earliest known convertible . What I received in the mail was a total of 5 invoices for the car. Copy #1 lists as Toronto Show at bottom of option list. Also copy #1 is rubber stamped Divert To Convoy. Just curious if anyone has an idea of what the meaning of Divert to Convoy is? Possibly convoy of early 69 cars for photo shoots or sales ads or public relations use ? Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks
“Divert to Convoy” would mean that the normal routing out of Dearborn would have been by rail car, but instead it would have an initial move by a car hauler instead. This would have added an additional expense to the move which would have to be accounted for by the bean counters as well as to ensure the approval process for the payment to the car hauler with the diversion payment codes.
The invoices is a different “thing” than a Marti report. They are the shipping invoices (often #2) that is one of the pages (multiple pages/copies of each invoice was produced) that showed how the car was ordered, routing information and so on for the vehicle. These were found (after being basically thrown away) by an employee over 35 years ago.
That person sold them separate and before Kevin got access to the Ford data and in those days she would not send you a copy (not sure if Kevin sends an original or copy today) but instead the original to you for a fee. She had a process where you had to prove ownership of said vehicle and such but it was a really cool thing to get since it was an original page related to your specific car. Kevin obtained all the remaining copies when she choose to retire from my understanding, and makes them available in addition to his Marti report service
Since cars could be shipped multiple times if they were being used for other purposes other than a simple straight forward customer sale at a dealership so individual paper trails were produced for each planned (not all transfers or shipments were executed in all cases) moving of the vehicle
In come cases the options were so many it took two pages to print all of them out. In other cases cars were moved about to different destinations’
To expand on what Jeff said, my understanding is that the invoices were used by the dealer to create the window stickers (which are reproduced in the Elite Marti Report). Unlike the window stickers (both original and reproduction), the invoice shows both the “Dealer cost” and the “customer cost” for each option. There are usually hand-written notes and hand-stamped markings on the invoice as well.
Sadly, Lois passed away in 2008 at the age of 88. She was a wise and friendly woman with an eye toward the future. Take the time to read her story, including her dusk rose T-Bird some time. We all owe her a thank you.