Other Vehicles built at St louis?

[William Holder]

Hello,
My neigbor just came over with the numbers off his 350 chevy block in his Jaguar. He wanted to know if it was a corvette engine like he was told when purchased the car.
IT was an 010 casting so I told him that it was possible. The VIN stamp had an S in it so I told him it was for sure a vette block but then I looked at the prefix on the date stamp and it was a K not a V or an F like I expected also the suffix which was DRB which is not a corvette code for either 69 or 79. Acoording to online info it is for a 79 full size chevy. And the K prefix means it was assembled in Canada,The VIN derivetive is 19S254236 and the 2 after the "S" does not fit in as it should be a 7 for 69 or a 4 for 79. SO my real Question is did Chevrolet make other vehicles ( I.E. Full size Chevys) other than Corvettes in either 69 or 79? Thanks in advance for any help. Bill

[William C.]

Re: Other Vehicles built at St louis?

Sure Did, Full Size Pass cars, and possibly trucks.

[John H.]

Re: Other Vehicles built at St louis?

The adjacent "big plant" had two separate lines - one at 65 per hour that built full-size Impala/Caprice (including the adjacent Fisher Body plant that built and painted the bodies), and a separate truck line that built pickups, chassis-cabs, and school bus chassis at about 30 per hour. There was also a smaller line on the 4th floor that built the Corvair-based Rampside pickup and Corvan passenger van through about 1966; that's the area we used to build the 1968 Corvette Pilot cars.

[Joe L.]

Re: Other Vehicles built at St louis?

Bill-----

As Bill described many other cars were built at St. Louis and carried the same "S" VIN code as Corvette. In fact, I believe even some Corvair models were once assembled at St Louis. At one time, St. Louis was the largest assembly COMPLEX in the entire GM assembly plant system.

Just so you don't get the wrong idea, though, the Corvette was not manufactured on the same LINE as other models; St. Louis was a large COMPLEX. The main plant produced all of the other models manufactured there EXCEPT Corvette. Corvette was manufactured at a separate assembly facility which was part of the St. Louis COMPLEX. However, all vehicles produced at the St. Louis COMPLEX had "S" VIN codes.

For what it's worth, a part of the original GM main plant still stands at the corner of Union and Natural Bridge Avenues in St. Louis. It's now some sort of "warehousing" operation, but no longer owned or used by GM. The Corvette plant was demolished years ago and replaced by a paper recycling operation.

[Joseph T.]

Also amphibious ducks *NM*

[Geoff C.]

Sound like an Old Wives Tale

Jags did not have Chevy V8 power except when done by amateurs. It was a popular conversion at one time. Jags did have some Delco Frigidaire AC parts.

Geoffrey Coenen

PS I had a 196? XKE convertible in the late 60's at it was stolen in Brooklyn. I later thanked God over and over, because I bought my first Corvette after I got the insurance check. If it wasn't stolen, I would probably still be stuck on the BQE. What a beautiful looking rackish terd it was.

[William Holder]

Re: Sound like an Old Wives Tale

THanks for all the info and my neighbor thanks you too!
Bill

PS I am Sure the Jag sounds better now than it did originally it now has single chamber flowmasters behind the small block. My wife keeps mentioning it because he leaves for work at 4:30 AM. It never seems to wake me though I guess it is just "Music to my ears!"
Bill

[Grant M.]

Re: Sound like an Old Wives Tale

Geoffrey,

The V-8 conversion most popular for XKEs was done with a Ford 302, backed-up by a C-4 or C-6 (I can't recall which) automatic transmission, which matched up with the driveshaft length for the Jag. The Ford engine cylinder head angles were such that it would fit between the Jag's front square tubular frame members without modification. There was at least one company selling "kits" with all of the brackets for engine mounting etc for about $800-900 during the late seventies--I have a copy of an article from I believe "Hotrod" magazine at the time, referring to the modified cars as "XKF"s and I've seen at least a couple of these for sale via the Internet in recent years.

The supposed advantage was enhanced reliability and parts availability with good power/weight ratio. The "legendary" tinkering with finicky Jag carbs was also obviated. In 1979 I went to look at a really rusty XKE for sale in Toronto with a thought in mind to do such a conversion myself--but the rust bubbles were up to a couple of inches below the door windows--pretty far gone. Over in the corner of the shop was a 4.1 litre Pontiac OHC six in the "Sprint" configuration (4 barrel Rochester, high compression with split exhaust). The shop owner told me that he was planning to install that engine in an XKE at some point. I don't know whether he was successful or not...

grant