An interesting story...COPO's or?

[Yenkofan]

A car show friend of mine and his father worked at the GM Van Nuys plant for years.
He tells this story and remembers it vividly because it was so unusual.
Sometime in the 1968 model run several Camaro's (in different colors) had to be pushed off the assembly line because they had no motors. He asked "What do you mean we have no motors? because the plant had tons of motors. He was again told "We have no motors". Shortly thereafter several motors arrived from the Tonawanda plant crated individually as opposed to several to a crate. He believes these motors were 427's.
On a Friday the cars and motors were sitting unassembled. He was told that a few people
had to work that weekend. When he came in Monday morning the cars and motors were gone.
They had been assembled over the weekend and
they were sent by some special transport company to Detroit for "testing".
That's all I know.
Gary

[Edited by Yenkofan (06-03-2001 at 10:47 PM).]

[Keith Tedford]

Over the years GM built lots of prototype cars for various feasibility studies and for all out racing. Even the Indy pace cars were assembly line built. Just about the simplest place to get the job done when using mostly off the shelf parts.

[NC Guy]

I agree with Kieth 100% and Gary's story is very realistic.
I personaly worked for Chrysler (yes, I said the 'C' word) from 1969-1977. It was not unusal for 'special parts' to be brought to the line during a production run. The parts often had a different color paint (paint dab) on them which meant they were to be used only after the line foreman instructed you to do so. I later learned that the parts may go on police, passenger/fleet or engineering cars. The equivalent of GM's COPO cars.
At the time, I often talked to a fellow UAW (United Automotive Worker) friend who worked at the Ford Motor plant in Cleveland, OH. He mentioned that now and then he would have to work weekends to catch up on 'special orders'.
Little doubt in my mind that the guys at Norwood and Van Nuys were doing the same thing.

[JoeC]

It is very expensive to stop or slow down an assembly line so any special work would have to be set up in advance with all the correct parts available. Chevy did this with the COPO cars. If a project required extensive modifications it would have to be done off line in Engineering or in a prototype shop. The factories also used outside vendors. Demmer Tool and Die in Lansing Michigan built some Hemi cars, AMXs, and some Hurst cars. The Boss 429 Mustangs were built at the Kar Kraft facility in Brighton, Michigan. Some Corvette bodies were supplied by Dow-Smith, a division of A.O. Smith Company, in Ionia Michigan.


[Edited by JoeC (06-06-2001 at 07:55 AM).]

[Yenkofan]

Joe:
My friend agrees with you.
He remembers this incident because to stop the line and push the cars off was a very very rare thing.
Gary

[Belair62]

Looks like Pontiac may have gathered up parts for "specials" and placed body onto line when ready....build sheet states.."Use Alum. comp available frm grp 35W Memo 406 use alum hood and fenders..body in storage line 8" Hard to tell exactly what they were up to though !

[Edited by Belair62 (06-06-2001 at 08:54 PM).]

[Kurt S]

JohnZ said:
Plausible, but most likely the engines were just production engines of a certain part number that didn't make it on time by rail (frequent problem with rail-shipped parts at Van Nuys); most "specials" were built at Norwood, due to proximity to Engineering assistance and overnight truck transportation.

[68l30]

I had a interesting night to say the least this evening.I went to a local car cruise only to find a 69 Camaro off in the distance by itself.This car was straight out of the 1970's.Talk about a period piece,ET mags,dash drilled for SW gauges,blah blah blah.Nice time piece,then the wheels in my head start to turn.This is a O5A car,140 speedo,center fuel gauge,tach,512 block,curved neck radiator,12 bolt,ect.After looking at the rear end I could barly get up from the ground,this was the real deal and nobody could have cared less.I waited for about an hour, when everyone left here comes the owner.Yes,they know what it is (with out my saying) but it's "just" a Camaro.Nothing special to them,just a lifelong friend and a great car.They paid $1300 for it in 1976 and have been driving it ever since.Sorry, the car is most definatly not for sale.I took my hat off to the owner,it's nice to see someone truly love their car for exactly what it is COPO or not.What a trip,I wish it was mine!


Steve