Very interesting movie about how the Fisher body plant made bodies in (1932) Chevy. <object style="height: 390px; width: 640px;"> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ERXtk1sl5gI?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="390" width="640"></object>
Lotsa go-no go gauges in those shots, I really liked the shuffle when the bubbles were pressed out of the glass.......but you really can tell that short was a product of an earlier age, He called one of the glass walkers a china doll and the people picking cotton darkies
how about those wood frames for the body skins.you would think fiberglass chevies would be a better option for restorers or hotrodders nowadays.cool movie.
Very cool video. I think the Fisher Body plant was in Kenosha WI, at least that is what is says on the tag on my 32 Chevy. They sure made a quality peice. I know first hand, that wood was really hard to remove from my 32.
cool video, its nice to see that people actually had to at work one time in history. didnt see any fat people in that video did ya!
There would have been Fisher Body plants either on site or close by every G.M. Assembly plant. That brief shot that shows a bridge over the street was taken in Flint. That bridge (over Chevrolet Avenue) allowed the bodies mfd in Fisher #2 to move eastward across the street to Chevrolet's Assembly plant. When I worked there in the '50s thru the '70s, Fisher #2 had become Chevrolet's #2A and was a stamping plant. The assembly plant had been replaced by a newer assembly plant on the S.W. corner of Flint-the building, then known as Chevrolet #2, was being used as a die shop (the main assembly bay), a crankshaft machining facility (east end and south side), and a Chevrolet National Parts Division warehouse (upper floors). Interestingly, the initial scenes of a fender being produced were taken in Chevrolet's own plant (#8) on that same site in Flint. All front end sheet metal was the responsibility of the individual car divisions in G.M. Every division had it's own stamping plant for fenders, hoods, and probably running boards and bumpers. If you look closely at that fender operation, you can cee the double action press operating the outer blankholder part of the die followed by the inner draw punch which actually shaped the part.
way cool, thanks for posting...all there testing on the parts shows why my 5 window still has 80% of the wood in good usable shape!
Too kool flick! Thanks for posting. It's becuz of those earlier craftsmen that I still have a 76 year old coupe to hot rod. There weren't any robots doing any work on that line.
Yeah. I think all my early chevys were built with the wood that didn't pass muster. Just saying all that wood didn't last.
80 years, no preservatives, stored in fields and crappy buildings all this after being banged around for 100k miles... not bad. don't get me wrong wood is an inferior product but...
All those inspection procedures were being performed in the Chevrolet factory-on mechanical things. You didn't see any Q.C. being performed on any of that wood in the Fisher Body plant. The only reason your Chevy's wood survived 80 years has to be due to shelter. It's been widely accepted for years that the reason old Fords outnumber old Chevies is because Fords with little or no wood in their bodies could survive decades out in the elements without collapsing.
Back in the day my father said he always bought GM cars because he claimed that they sounded very solid and quiet as apposed to the all steel Fords that sounded like you were riding around in a tin can.I guess that's not such a big issue when 80 years later they are turned into high performance HOT RODs.
The Jalopy Journal
