Motion Pictures The 1960 GM Assembly Line

Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post:

The 1960 GM Assembly Line

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What is also to remembered, is that most of the time, one did not go to the dealer and 'buy off the lot'.
The dealers had models but you sat in the room and checked off your options, as part of the upsell by the sales man,,, Yes sir that heater is just an additional $13.00, and that little lady of yours could sure use that automatic transmission and it's only $35.00 more,,,,"
Then you waited the months for 'Your Car' to show up at the dealer...
When was the last time you or someone you know actually checked off the list of want's then waiter for the build and not just "bought of the lot"???

 

1987.....



Neat film, thanks for the link. I hadn't seen that one yet

 

While your description of how cars were bought may be true of some time period or small towns, it is not how it has been done by the majority of dealers. Cars are stocked in a variety of popular models, colors and equipment based on experience of what sells well. Yes, there were always some people who wanted a very specific combination or just having the fun of ordering 'their' car.

Dealers (and other merchants) know how important it is to get the 'sale' by having vehicles on the spot and selling while the customer is excited at the prospect of driving away in his/ her new car NOW. If a car that satisfies the customer is not in stock, the first resort is to locate and 'dealer trade' for the needed unit.

About 30 years ago the major manufacturers began the 'easy order' packages. Packaged combinations of options, from lesser to greater, that could be ordered by a single check mark. It simplified the order process and the factory's assembly planning and ordering of components. It did reduce some flexibility in ordering choices of equipment.

Ray

 

When I was a young teenager, we took a class field trip to the St Louis, MO Chevrolet Assembly Plant. It was 1959 models being built at the time. Most of what we saw was the chassis line, bare rails to 'roller' and then the body drop and final assembly. It was crowded, very busy and quite noisy. We did not see the subassembly facilities depicted in the video as most of that was off site and parts shipped to final assembly.

I later toured several plants during my career in the business and saw the swing to increased automation that took out much of the room for error. The plant environment changed too. Much cleaner, quieter and better lighting.

Ray

 

Cars from the 50s and 60s were made from steel produced in the USA, strong and durable. Anyone remember the "25 mph bumper"? They had class, and good lines. I regret getting rid of any of my old rods. I raced Shirley Shahan at Irwindale Drag Strip in 1970 driving my '67 SS 396 Chevelle I bought when I returned home from 'Nam. I'm now in possession of a '64 Goat that I've been rebuilding for over 8 years. My last best effort!

 

Ray, 30 years ago was the 80's,,, this movie (not a video) was for 1960 (57 years ago). So maybe you are from a large city but this Midwestern city boy, whose father was a dealership mechanic then (from 1958 out of the Marines to 1968 when re re-upped), it was go to the lot look around and order it.
It was not the time of instant gratification, buying a car was like buying a house
And dealers didn't want to pay for a car on the lot that would not sell....
As I remember,,,

 

2000 Ford Focus wagon, mama picked the colors and such, I picked the 2.0 DOHC from the sport model, but could only get the automatic.

 

This brings back a lot of memories.
Funny to see most assemblers having white or kacky pants.

I Worked in a final assembly plant for Volvo-gm in the 80-90's in QC. Amazingly the production lines were very much like this 1960 clip. Except for an occasional robot most were assembled by hand with the help of handlers just like this.


..

 

As I said in my post, things may have been different in time and place. I was not a 'City Boy'... lived in rural areas of Missouri with the County Seat having just over 3500 population in the 1960s. I am now 73 and spent my working life in the automobile business. I fully understand the era of the film...and my comments about "30 years ago" were in reference to changes in the ordering system from laboriously checking item by item to the 'packaging' of options. I am not saying your experiences weren't accurate...for you...only that it wasn't the same everywhere.

Video..noun...."a program, movie or other visual media product featuring moving images, with or without audio, that is is recorded and saved......"

Ray

 

HA! We must have lived in small towns (& we did). I remember a couple times dad's car came in, but not in the color he ordered. Either take it, or keep waiting! He typically took it.
-Dave

 

Ray,
You worked it, I was just a kid, 62 1/2 now.
And really at the time, my family only had used cars, usually trade-in to the lots.

And yes a film is a video, just like a photo shot on film is the same as a digital shot,, they are both 'pictures', but ask Ryan, they are different.

 

That 4-door hardtop speaks to me...

 

In the summer of 1960, my aunt & uncle and boys from St Louis visited the grandparents in a bright-blue and white '60 Impala 4 dr hdtp similar to the one shown.
That was the most beautiful car I'd ever seen.

 

.......as it did to a lot of families, HRS. If a family had corporate connections, they might have opted for the ground hugging suspension package, as this family did with a C.O.P.O.

 

Working on the assembly line was an interesting job. Some good jobs some bad jobs. 1964 to 1994.

 

All those steering wheels... . Loved how they slammed the front sheet metal on with no scratching. I had a black /red 60 Impala s door hardtop. Only car I regret selling. As always, worth the time, JB.

 

Come on!? April 4ths Day?

 

COPO was out there. Most of us monikies didn't know anything about till much later. Police and Taxis were listed as COPO. I saw some cheap body cars with the big engine. Remember hearing a 427 4 spd on roll test. They were short the lead pipe on the right side. What a sound. I was well over four hundred feet away. Inside the building. Lots of material and racks between it and the area I was in. Some of the repairmen went to look and report back.

 

I tried ordering, 2002 Silverado short bed 5.3 stick 373 posi dark blue. Took my down payment and after 2 months I didn't have a delivery or build date. Called the zone manager, nada. I was a GM salary employee at the time and couldn't get an answer. After 3 months and no build date, I went back for a refund on my deposit.

 

The highlight of my 9th grade shop class was a field trip to the Baltimore GM Assembly Plant. All of the GM intermediates were being assembled there at that time (1964-1965).

 

That's when I learned that they actually did set aside the cars with the best sheet metal to be painted Black.

 

Two individuals with no safety apparatus (i.e. respirators, suits, etc.) were painting cars in the spray booth with guns (no robotics yet). They were standing on a surface consisting of metal grates with water rushing underneath to pull overspray out into what I would have to assume was the Patapsco River!

 

Worked on the assembly line '58-'66 at the Lakewood Fisher Body plant in Atlanta. We built the Chev. car bodies for the Chev. assy plant on the other side of the wall that ran down the middle of the huge building.
The video on here for '60 model was more about what was done on the other side of the wall, where we weren't supposed to go, but sometimes did slip over just to get a look at the finished product when new models came out
When that video finishes there are other videos offered and the one on '59 Chev. was more about what went on on "our side of the wall" In those 8 years I moved from spotwelding on body construction as seniority advanced, on to sub assy, still spotwelding, on to a job in "body in white" using a grinder with fine grit cup discs to polish areas repaired by metal finishers where there was a dent or ding once assembled.
From there I moved into solder joint repair on the "sail panel" joint where the quarter panel and the roof joined The joint had already been soldered, ground and inspected before the body got to me and the guy on the other side, and the inspector marked any imperfections which we had to fix. Good job when all the people involved were the regular operators and not absent and a substitute was on the job From there I moved into the actual metal finisher or repairman who fixed all the dents, dings, etc. that were always present, and marked by an inspector.
Then a big RIF came along, an entire shift was laid off and out the door I went and into a technical school for machinist trade.
In '77 I returned to assembly plants as a tool maker at the Atlanta Ford plant, and there was a lot of change going on in auto assembly,and I worked quite a bit of the time setting up and maintaining automated machinery and related stuff. Then in less than 2 years along came the second oil crisis and another RIF
I then decided I had had enough of the auto industry, and got a job as a machinist in the shops of a major airline, where we made and repaired components for airliners and their engines.
Best move I ever made

 

bump

 

Cool video

 

1965 El Camino from Fremont,CA
Hello,

Does anyone know a person that worked in the GM assembly line in 1965 at Fremont, CA? When I ordered the new 1965 El Camino, I was told that it came from the Fremont, California plant in 1964. By the time I got the new car in the fall of 1964, I was set to go to San Jose for college in the spring of 65. So, naturally, once there, I drove by the factory in Fremont, about 20 miles up the 880 freeway. I drove all over the GM facility to introduce the new El Camino to its birthplace. The S.F. Bay Area was a treasure trove of places to go and sights to see, like the Fremont Dragstrip and Vic Hubbards Speed Shop, just another 15 miles farther up the freeway in Hayward.

It wasn’t like I had to study in college all of the time. I needed some familiarity with things I knew, in order to get used to being away from home for the first time. (hot rods, speed shops, motorcycles, good surf was an hour away in Santa Cruz or under the Golden Gate in S.F. etc) A college kid away from home, thinking about his comfy environment back at home?... It does happen all of the time.

GM Factory: Fremont, CA, 20 miles north of San Jose.
Fremont, CA: home to the Northern California's famous, Fremont Dragstrip.

Right in front of this assembly plant in May of 65, I had a blow out going 70 mph on a Triumph 650cc motorcycle. It wobbled for a block or two until I could control it to pull over. I put the bike in the thick bushes off the freeway near the chain link fence, walked to a gas station, and called a roommate to bring a trailer to take the Triumph back to our apartment in San Jose. Talk about a high speed wobble.

Jnaki

GM assembly plant: Los Angeles or Oakland, CA

When my brother ordered his 58 Impala, we walked on the local dealer's lot to see which cars were available. Then when no black Impalas with the stuff he wanted were on the lot, we sat down with the salesman to order. The stock Impala was ordered with a 280 HP 348, 3 speed, red interior, heavy duty stuff (radiator, springs, shocks,etc) and a special order 4:11 Positraction gears.

He knew his monetary limits, so my brother saw what he could order. He wanted the total 315 HP performance package, but that was over his budget. We were told that it was to be made in California. The only two factory compounds were in Los Angeles and Oakland. There is no current VIN to verify which place it was built.

black, 1958 Impala in So Cal

(Two Chevrolet vehicles, 7 years apart, built in California for a couple of car crazy, So Cal teenagers.)

 

I love cars. I mean, I really love 'em just like ya'll do.
I hired into GMC Truck & Bus in 1969 - didn't make it a year. Made over twice per hour that I was earning at the gas station or drug store. Walked out Christmas Eve, during 1st break and never looked back. Didn't work a single damned day on the assembly line - was out in a place called "Building 7500", where we loaded cabs/chassis piggy-back onto rail flatcars. Old man & two kid brothers retired from that damned place.Hated it worse than row planting crops, milking the cows every morning - it was just soul sucking for me.

And yet other guys and gals loved it.

The opening scene in the video has a guy leading the joints on a window post. That's what my old man did for some 20 years. He ran a lathe later, I remember that too.

Anyway, where was I going with this? I don't know. I know our whole state's economy revolved around the automobile for a full century. It was good, it was bad, it was the way it was.

That big huge plant I went to every afternoon in Pontiac? Didn't look a thing like the video. It looked just like any industrial building that had been building metal things for a hundred years: dreary, sooty, greasy, always in need of sprucing up, never enough light inside...

 

Couldn't get a stick with a 5.3. don't know why. I have a blue 03 with a 4.8 stick 4x4

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