[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Lee Stewart

Did you know . . .

The reason why the 2nd gen Camaro was so late going into production was due to the rear fenders. Things had been right on schedule for the all-new Camaro body stampings at Fisher Body, when during what is called “final die tryouts” right before production stamping begins, the quarter-panels kept wrinkling and splitting. The body dies required too much draw for the sheetmetal to cooperate. Fisher decided to reconfigure the draw dies, which are the two halves needed to pound out a fender or panel from flat sheet stock. This required a short delay. Unfortunately, the resulting quarter-panels stamped from the new dies were worse than the previous attempt. What to do? Chevrolet delayed the intro for the Camaro—again—while Fisher created entirely new dies.

I assume the same went for the Firebird too




In case you have never seen them, here is a set of dies: Male and Female. Some refer to them as "tools or tooling."




The machines used to stamp out car hoods, fenders, etc are HUGE:

My dad was a die maker for 26 years, at Chevrolet Flint Manufacturing (aka "Chevy in the Hole"). I starting going into pressed metal plants when I was eight years old, as a result ("Explorer Scouts" is what it was called).

I have an uncle that could sleep leaning up against a massive press like that.

K