1966 Assembly Line

[Mark J.]

How long (or how many days) on average was a base 1966 Corvette convertible on the assembly line? My trim tag is dated Friday, April 29, 1966, and was within the last 100 cars for the month. I am interested in estimating when assembly of my car might have begun.

Mark

[John H.]

Re: 1966 Assembly Line

How long (or how many days) on average was a base 1966 Corvette convertible on the assembly line? My trim tag is dated Friday, April 29, 1966, and was within the last 100 cars for the month. I am interested in estimating when assembly of my car might have begun.

Mark

Mark -

It took about a day and a half from underbody load on the body build truck to the shipping gate.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1966 Assembly Line

John how many people on the assembly line did it take to make one in a day and a half?

It took me over 800 hours to dismantle and rebuild the last '67 I did.

[Sean S.]

Re: 1966 Assembly Line

Mark, You could order the shipping data report from NCRS to get the date your Corvette was produced. The "born on" date. I have a 1968 convertible with a Friday, March 1st trim tag. The shipping data report told me the date produced was Monday, March 4th. Sean

[Mark J.]

Re: 1966 Assembly Line

Sean,
You raise a good point about comparing the trim tag date to the Shipping Data Report. I have an A.O. Smith Body, which was produced 475 miles away from the St. Louis assembly plant. The trim tag is dated Thursday, April 21, 1966. The Shipping Data Report states the official production date was Friday, April 29th. Assuming the Trim Tag date is related to the A.O. Smith body production date, and given the 1.5 days for the St. Louis assembly line per John H., this would leave four business days to transport the body to St. Louis and load on the assembly line.
Mark

[Duke W.]

Re: 1966 Assembly Line

Mark -

It took about a day and a half from underbody load on the body build truck to the shipping gate.

John - how many hours for the final assembly line, starting with loading the frame and installing the suspension pieces? At that point the completed body should have queued up to meet with the proper chassis at body drop.

BTW, in the last couple of weeks I've been viewing the National Geographic "Ultimate Car Factories" series that I checked out from the LA County library system. There are a total of five DVDs and Corvette is featured in the first one.

This is a must see for all you guys that are interested in how cars are assembled including engine assembly. Things have certainly gotten a lot more "high tech" since my brief stint as a Pontiac production engineer in 1968.

Duke

[John H.]

Re: 1966 Assembly Line

John how many people on the assembly line did it take to make one in a day and a half?

It took me over 800 hours to dismantle and rebuild the last '67 I did.

Richard -

In the 1963-up 2-shift era, St. Louis-Corvette employed about 1,450 people on two shifts.