New purchase 68 Formula S

Found a mention of Larry Jett in an old Superbird club newsletter online...

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Let’s talk a little bit more about special paint code. Member Gene Lewis had posted a note on the dodgecharger.com forum regarding special order paint. This was a former Chrysler district manager Larry Jett speaking in a column he had written. Larry talks about a request he got from one of his dealers, Bill Clark Chrysler-Plymouth in Ukiah California, about obtaining a 1968 Road Runner in something other than the factory stock colors; orange, perhaps. Remember this is 1968 before any of the high impact colors were available as part of the standard color choices. *** Larry writes:

“On my next visit to the home office, I took coffee to the Regional Service Manager and asked about the special order 999 paint codes. Turns out the rules were loose and not widely disseminated. A fleet account could order any recognized Ditzler paint code for an additional charge of $75. It was a rarely used build procedure which was fine with the desk heads, but wreaked havoc with the paint booth scheduling. I found three pages of orange tints and selected the code for Omaha Orange, only to be told that oranges were difficult hues and would chalk up quicker than average. Undeterred, I made up a (bogus) fleet account called “Redwood Empire International Harvester” and ordered an orange Road Runner for the Ukiah dealer. Several weeks later, an excited Bill Clark called me at home and wanted five more orange Road Runners and GTXs. He had detailed the car on Saturday, and by Sunday, the Ukiah police had to direct traffic in and out of his place while the farm boys came in droves to see and order. The orange cars were so much fun, I ordered several more for other dealers in the Santa Rosa (CA) district.

I would say that over 100 cars were ultimately shipped in 1968 to our region after other managers followed my lead. The Los Angeles assembly plant having enough of my nonsense called my boss to complain, and I was on the carpet again. It didn’t go unnoticed that the 1969s had several high impact paints, orange included.” Larry Jett ***

The orange that Larry talks about would be the special order color on Tim Wellborn’s Daytona. I’m sure it was not special ordered like the above procedure. By 1969, the color would have been available as a listed special order color. However, Tim’s Daytona is the only one known to exist in this color to date. Very exciting news, indeed.....