Bottom line, if you do not find one in your car, you cannot buy a replacement from General Motors or an original from anyone else. There are unscrupulous individuals that will create a build sheet for you and even 'age' it so it looks real but often, and more times than not, are easily spotted as a fake. How does one spot a fake? Beginning with the 1970 model year, around the first of the 1970 calendar year a small change was made to the paperwork itself and those that fake build sheets often do not know this for a given assembly plant and use the wrong version. Wrong fonts are often used on fake build sheets. U.S. assembly plants typically will use different broadcast codes and different verbiage for the same option. For example, a 1970 SS396 optioned Malibu from the Kansas City assembly plant will code the SS wheels (in box #40) as "5-AO" (for SS wheels after at least November 10, 1969 and "5-YA" prior to that) where other plants such as Atlanta will code the same SS wheels as simply "AO" or "YA" with the former being changed around September 24, 1969. in box #10 SCHED NO. DATE, U.S. assembly plants had different ways of displaying the SCHED NO. in this box. While the DATE portion of the information was consistent with two 2-digit numbers representing the day and month, the SCHED 2-digit number served a different purpose. For the Kansas City assembly plant, the 2-digit SCHED number represented the work day of the month regardless of the physical day where the Atlanta assembly plant simply started with the number 01 and increased this number by 1 for every workday up to 99 then started over again with the number 01. A January 5, 1970 built Chevelle from Kansas City will show the numbers "01 01-05" where an Atlanta Chevelle built on the same day will show "65 01-05." The 5th of January was the first work day of January at the Kansas City assembly plant but the 65th workday since production began at the Atlanta assembly plant. And, for what it's worth, the Van Nuys plant will have "05 01-05" for the same date where the first "05" represents the 5th physical day of the month.

Bottom line, there are quite a few differences in how build sheets (or more accurately 'broadcast' sheets) were coded from plant to plant and often a fake sheet will have broadcast codes and/or verbiage from several different plants. If you have a 1970 SS396 or SS454, I have a Build Sheet decoder program for Atlanta, Baltimore, Kansas City, and Van Nuys build sheets showing what each box represents and how to tell if yours is a legit build sheet. See here to order it either on CD media or download to your PC or MAC.

There are some misconceptions about 'build sheets' and even what constitutes a 'build sheet' in today's vernacular. It/they are simply paperwork that is/are created to show what components are to be used to build the vehicle.

For common reference, we'll call this paperwork a build sheet. This one happens to be for a 1970 Chevelle from the Leed's assembly plant in Kansas City, Missouri. This form of broadcast sheet was used from 1969 on at most U.S. GM assembly plants.

Prior to 1969, most U.S. GM assembly plants used two pieces of paperwork, a BODY BROADCAST COPY sheet used by Fisher Body and a CHASSIS BROADCAST COPY sheet used by Chevrolet assembly. The exceptions are the Fremont, CA. and Framingham, MA. assembly plants that used the more common 'build sheet' since 1964 for Chevelles.

The 1969 model year was a transition year from the BODY/CHASSIS BROADCAST COPY sheets to the single build sheet for the Baltimore and Kansas City assembly plants. To date no 1969 Atlanta single copy build sheet has turned up, only BODY/CHASSIS BROADCAST COPY sheets. By the 1970 model year most plants had transitioned to the more common single copy build sheet with Flint being the exception as they continued to use the two broadcast copy sheets.

The Oshawa, ON. GM assembly plant used what are called a 'Line Schedule Tag" in lieu of broadcast copy sheets at least for 1970 on. These topically only have broadcast codes, the VIN, paint color and style numbers and other pertinent information for plant use.

Since Canadian law requires there be a record kept on all cars either built in Canada or those imported into Canada for sales through a Canadian dealer you can order, for a price, a printout of your vehicles information if one of the two conditions apply. Vintage Vehicle Services offers this service. Their early paperwork shows some form of "GM of Canada Limited" or "GM of Canada" text in their letterhead. To quote the Vintage Vehicle Services website, "n 1994 Vintage Vehicle Services Inc. began working very closely with General Motors of Canada to make a variety of Information available to the general public. Over the years the relationship mellowed as many do, and by 2015 we decided we would continue this on our own rather than see it discontinued altogether. Our office is located next door to the General Motors of Canada administrative building." Their letterhead now shows, "VINTAGE VEHICLE SERVICES, INC." but many people still refer to them as GM of Canada.

What you get is a 1 or 2 page typed report on your car showing where the car was built, the customer ordering the report (blanked out here), the VIN (also partially blanked out here), trim code, paint code, stipe color (if applicable), production plant (if imported into Canada), production and shipping dates, model, engine type/code, engine number, final dealer (whether imported into or exported to Canada), the number produced of that particular series and sometimes the number of an option or two), and a list of all options.

Since this paperwork was researched from records, the verbiage (and sometimes the layout itself) would change from time to time but all the essential information is still there.

No such service is offered by anyone in the U.S. for U.S.-built Chevrolets since records were destroyed in the 80s and there is nothing to research for Chevrolets. Pontiac Historical Services, an  independent organization much like Vintage Vehicle Services in Canada, and can provide similar services for 1961 through 1999 Pontiacs.