Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 1960 Impala project

Back in those days, you could get all sorts of odd ball combinations...

" and but why?".... Factory would make all sorts of combinations, and they would just get shipped to a dealer.

Back around 1990 up in Washington State, ran into a lady with a 64 GTO at a gas station. Her husband had bought the car new, in 1965 in Bellingham WA. The car was a left over 64 model, that they dealer ended up getting in, but no one would buy it... so her husband got it at Dealer Cost. IT was the REAL Base Model GTO in 64. Had all the GTO Body parts, and the car came thru with a Bench seat in front, and a 389 under the hood, BUT with a 2 barrel on top instead of a 4 barrel or the 6 pack ( triple deuces).

It was a base GTO, with NO options from the Factory...No one would buy it due to it being base model with no options.

I worked in a GM factory in Massachusetts while going thru college for 2 yrs, until the 1974 fuel shortage scam. Factory made mid size GM Pontiac, Buick and Olds models. Saw some real odd ball combos come thru the assembly line, but they were on the option listing, combos that few people ordered. The folks at the factory would put together odd ball combos on the assembly line, and wasn't caught until it went out the door over in Final Inspection Dept. Several times I saw a Buick go out with the motor marked Olds on the Valve covers, or a Pontiac, and odd balls things like that.

People on the assembly line would sabotage all sorts of ways, just to decrease the boredom.

Examples, when I was on the spray line.
1. Paint a car one color, but then under the truck lid, paint the inside of that another color.
2. Drop a pop bottle down inside the door, before putting on all the hardware and cover. So you open and close your new cars door and the bottle is making the door go Klunk Klunk ever time you use it.

the silliest I've seen: We had a 130 guys on the spray paint line. Car comes in the spray line, first section is too guys who just put the paint connectors on the machine that applies the primer, and then they apply the prime to sections the machine couldn't reach, as the inside of the door jams etc.

then it passes to the next section of 4 people. I was the left side lead. On the body carrier, would be a manifest for the car, taped to it. The supervisor would write the paint color code ( a number) with a magic marker in large print. One color had 3 tones to it, depending if it went on a Buick, Olds or Pontiac. Depending on the car code, that color was # 59, 69 and 79.

To sabotage it, just due to boredom. The appropriate car color would be 59, so I'd plug in that spray hose on the overall machine and then in my hand sprayer for the hard to reach areas, I'd put that hose on... the guy who was the rear on the left side, would just look up and see the color I'd put on, never looking at the manifest. To break the boredom the guy on the other side, might plug in number 69 or 79. With all the light in the spray line we could tell a color by a glance, which is what most guys did on down the line. So in the spray line, one half would get painted a Buick version of that color ( a sort of bronze), and the other half of the car on the right half would be painted a Pontiac or Olds version of that color. Everyone chuckling. As the car went thru the rest of the plant, with the lighting there, no one could see the difference all the way thru manufacturing.

Until.... the car was outside in the sun light. Then the car looked like something out of a car wax commercial, where one half is a faded color and the other half is all waxed up, with the wax they were advertising. They'd have to take the car, dissemble a bunch of it and re run it thru the spray line.
When management would come up on the spray line, they would go to my 4 man section and try and chew out me or the other guys, depending on the side the wrong color was painted. Our response would be, that the color code scribbled on the manifest looked like a 59 to me and the other guy would claim it looked like a 69 or 79 to him. all the other guys down stream, just painted their part with what they looked up and saw coming down the line..

Funny part was that 128 guys could see what was being done, and instead of stopping the line.. they'd let it go on thru... they could see what color was being used on each side, but management knew they just looked up and painted their part, with what was coming down the line...

YET the other half of the story...

Number 11 was white on the paint code and Number 19 was black. You got in such a daze on that production line, I've seen when I would read number 11 or number 19 hand written on the manifest, the lead on the other side read the opposite number I interpreted as written. So the left half of the car is painted white and the right half is painted black. It was go past 124 more guys down line from me and the other lead, and no one would notice it. Finally someone down the assembly line would notice it, stop the line, which got the supervisors attention real quick. They would halt the entire production line for the entire factory, while that car body was taken off the line, and then management would have to go to each section thru out the factory and pull that manifest from their production line. and then re enter the car on the production line from the start.. the body we'd messed up, went to a final production section and be shipped off to somewhere else to be stripped and then sent back.

in those days in the 70s, it cost GM some unGodly amount of money, for each minute that assembly line wasn't moving. Management would want to chew out the people they thought were responsible, but being in a Union, the UAW.. If your manager tried to be a bad ass on ya, all you had to do was to tell him to file a "78". That meant, he had to do was STFU, and call down a Union Shop Steward.. Shop Steward would explain the issue to him, he'd listen and then tell the GM Manager to get Screwed. If the manager pushed it, the Shop Steward sent down would call back on the Walkie Talkie to the Union Shop, where management just hung around all day. They'd go out immediate and do a plant wide shut down, until the issue got "solved".

Heck sometimes, several times in an 8 hour shift, a shop steward would come by, and just tell me to drop was I was doing and don't lift a finger until he came by and tell me to start working again... another plant shutdown due to a managerial dispute somewhere in the plant. Sometimes the shop steward wouldn't show up to tell you to start working again for 15 to 20 minutes. Even GM told us when we orientated as a new hire, for each minute the assembly line isn't moving, it costs the company 10K.. and that is 1973 dollars.

After working in an automobile plant for 2 years in college.. I've only EVER bought one American made vehicle new. and I had that less than a year.
That was an F 150 back in 86. I've seen first hand what kind of shop the UAW runs...

Gunzo... Reflecting back on the situation, The deep state probably used the unions to help destroy American manufacturing, As it seems like this was their goal... Either way, They destroyed the middle class and used the proceeds to create themselves a Billionaire class, Which mostly didn't exist prior to the destruction of American Manufacturing and the large middle class it created... However it happened, You're right, It's just fuqking sickening!.. #firingsquads