1965 Greenbrier Registry

1528 Greenbriers were built in model year 1965, the final year of production. The '65 Greenbrier is the fifth-least-produced of all Corvair models. The vans were built in St. Louis, MO through December of 1964. Chevy production information furnished by Dave Newell makes it possible to tell which month a given Greenbrier was built.

As of September 16, 2011, there are 73 1965 Greenbriers in this registry. I have a lead on 2 other vans at this time.

Decoding a Greenbrier VIN

Decoding a Greenbrier VIN is very straightforward. For example, in this sample VIN:

R1265S100789

For some reason, the VIN tag format for 1965 is different from all other FC production years. In previous years, the model year digit was the in the first position instead of the fifth.

Delivery Date

Some Greenbriers have a delivery date stamped on the VIN tag by the dealer (just after the "DD"). Dave Newell describes the purpose and format of the stamp very clearly:

"The delivery date (DD) procedure (stamping the VIN plate) began with the 1963 model year. It was always stamped by the dealer. The purpose was to identify when the warranty coverage began. Since that coverage didn't start until the vehicle was in the hands of the new owner, the date stamped indicated when the vehicle was delivered to them, NOT when it was delivered to the dealer.

The only problem was that many (most!) dealers forgot or didn't bother to stamp on the DD. Since the day of the month wasn't necessary for warranty purposes, the code was only 3 digits, showing month and year. Thus "114" was November 1964. January 1965 would be "015".

The system really didn't work too well. The idea was to settle arguments with the customer about when the warranty began, and mostly make it easier for a dealer's service writers to determine when the warranty had started, at a glance. Especially if the vehicle had been sold somewhere else."

Using the Registry

In the table below:

Note: No Greenbriers were produced in October due to the GM / United Auto Workers strike.

If you're wondering about how Greenbriers could be equipped, you can browse information on '65 GB standard equipment, tires, options, prices, and colors.