Motion Pictures The 1960 GM Assembly Line

Chevy should of just kept making the 1960 body year after year. It's a beaut.


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In grade school (60's), we went on a field trip to the AMC assembly plant in Kenosha, Wi. I remember, like this film depicted, the car bodies being lowered from the ceiling to the chassis. We followed the cars down the line to the dyno. Just a cool experience.
When I go down to Kenosha for a car show, I'm all ears when I find a guy sitting by a one off AMC car. Most of the time, it's one of the assembly workers who ordered the car at the plant and had his own hand in building it.

 

When you watch a video like this, you really have to have respect for all the parts that are put into an automobile, and how much work, either by man or machine, it takes to put it all together. And back then, maybe not as much so now, a large number of those parts get changed and redesigned every year.
I've bought six new vehicles in my lifetime, all except one were "off the lot", and that one was a "dealer swap" to get the car I wanted in the color I wanted. Never had time to wait on one to be built, always needed it right then I thought. Last new one we bought was back in 87, will never do it again, they have priced anything I would own out of my reach, but that's a story for another day.....

 

I ordered my last 2 trucks. 2004 Ford F-250 and 2013 F-150. Both took about 4 weeks. When I picked up the last one from the fleet sales guy. 3 normal salesmen were standing asking why doesn't the ordering department have something like this one for us to sell. We all laughed. It seems bucket seats, 2 tone paint, and 6-1/2' beds are not in XLT's much.

 

I was chomping at the bit to get my license in '61 when the new Chevys came out; I was kinda relieved that the styling had given up the out-and-out spaceship look of '59-60, but then there were two huge factors that mitigated against my own involvement with the new cars; I was hooked on the '55-57 bombs even then (less weight+good hosspower=better handling, etc.) AND I could barely afford the 'littlest outlaw' '55 DelRay 265/stick that I had for a first car. No, it didn't win very often against those W-motors, but it ran hard and out-revved them handily.
I did the '59 Chevy history in "Street Rodder" How To Build issue, as I had had Chuck Jordan's help in accessing the GM Photographic files for the '58-9-60 cars (not 'Vair or 'Vette) and can confirm that we dodged a bullet in missing out on some of the bodies that GM Design Staff floated as clay models. Some made the Edsel look conservative; and some features leaked through into the production cars anyhow; and not just Chevy -- Pontiac got a lot of the nutty 'advanced' features in '59 also. However, as you say, they sold like cut-rate gold bars; and whatever else one can say in criticism, they were absolutely nuts to cruise in! If you needed a ride to compliment your flat top, Princeton, Chicago Boxcar, D.A., or whatever haircut you built with Butch Wax or Brylcreem, nothing could equal a '59-60 Impala (heck, BelAir, whatever!) under the streetlights on Main Street! With the proper 'Dago, and some talkin' Pacemakers, the world knew that you were in town, and meant business!
I researched and wrote the first collector-car articles on the '58-9 Impalas for "Special Interest Autos" Magazine in the late '70s, and did the definitive W-motor article for "Late Great Chevy" Magazine about the same time; I used both the Society of Automotive Engineers "Journal" article by the project engineers, as well as a little known publication, the house-organ "GM Engineering Journal" for sources, plus interviews with some of the same designers. A lot of later journalism about the 348-409 uses them for information, but uncredited.
In the end, however, I still agreed with Smokey Yunick, who chose to run his '57 stocker (haha) for another year in NASCAR rather than move to the new X-frame bodies: his reasons 'better frame, better engine location, and what kind of motor was the 348?' "A junk motor" he told me. Oh well...
Thanks for a great forum!! Wick

 

My Dad was a Chevrolet dealership mechanic in the 50's. The dealer asked for volunteers to "hide" the new models until the New Model celebration that usually occurred in late Sept. or early Nov. Dad brought a new bronze Impala 4-door hardtop and stored in our 1 car garage until the big night. I can drive by that tiny garage to this day and am still amazed that that big Impala all went into that little bitty garage!