Last night, bobm left a comment on the ’36 Chevy CC with a link to a video of the 1936 Chevy being built (including lots of shots of its Dubonnet suspension), with an electronic music soundtrack. I watched it just before going to bed, and I slept particularly well. Probably no connection, but it is a rather mesmerizing nine minutes. Maybe you should wait until bed time too.
Lovely Sunday morning viewing.
Make me wonder if Busby Berkeley got his inspiration from watching assembly lines such as this. After all, it was the same era…
I was reminded of Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times”.
This is a segment from a film called “Master Hands”, a documentary film about assembly line work in a Chevrolet assembly plant in 1936. At least the original sound track is much better than this-all it does is give me a headache.
That’s on YouTube, as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bT6txm4RpA
Floyd’s Welcome to the Machine would have been a much better track.
I’m not sure what I expected, but there is a lot of automation, for lack of a better word, going on in this factory. Awesome video!
I had the same response, especially compared to some older movies of the Ford assembly lines. Things were changing quickly.
Yeah, I was surprised too by the level of “automation”. I’m used to that guy at Ford sticking spokes in the wheel by hand.
But sometimes you still need the guy with the big hammer (2:35).
It’s not always the size of the hammer, it’s how you swing it! 😉
Very good video. 🙂
Here one more video, I spotted this vintage Chrysler movie filmed originally for the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair under the original name of “In Tune for Tomorrow”. It was re-shot in color in 1940 under the name “New Dimensions”
And here another vintage movie about the 1937 Plymouth titled “Sailing Along”
Great vid, thanks. Especially liked the moment when a pre-assembled body joins a pre-assembled frame and the car is born; kinda makes me understand why US car builders have used body-on-frame construction for so long – assembling a unibody car on the assembly line looks waaay more awkward, not to mention the possibility to use several different bodies on a single frame. Surprised to see so much automatic stuff as early as in 1936, too. Sometimes it even looks just… sinister, I’d say. I definitely thought that a somewhat larger amount of hand labour had been involved in building these cars.
The process is much the same, especially when there are usually subframes to which the mechanicals are mounted, that attach in much the same way as a complete separate chassis.
Great fun. Thanks for finding this. Hope to see more like it.
Reminds me of Metropolis.
The music sounds like it might be from Tangerine Dream, or Klaus Schultze (who was an original member of TD).
Great video.
I was kind of amazed too by the amount of automation, particularly in frame assembly. Looking at that, I realized I really wouldn’t want to be the guys putting the same bolt into the same hole on the frames for a day, let alone a year, let alone the 45 or 50 years you had to put in then to qualify for retirement.
I wonder if the shots of the stamping plant are from Grand Rapids? The stamping plant here (now closed) was completed in the mid 30’s, it supplied a big chunk of the northern half of the US assembly plants at one time. Before it was closed in 2009, it was still supplying Janesville, WI with truck parts (that plant is closed now, too).
The real death knell of these plants is the fact that many of the surviving assembly plants now have their own stamping plant on-premises. No need to stamp a panel in GR and ship to Lordstown or Flint or where ever…
I was surprised by the automation too. Of particular note was how physically fit the workers were back then. Men were definitely men. Look at today’s American assembly line workers: 250 to 300 pounds wearing t-shirts, tennis shoes, and Charlie Brown shorts.
1936 was a year or so before the UAW really got rolling as a force to be reckoned with. I believe that the sit-down strikes at GM did not occur until 1937. The Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act) had only been passed in 1935, so this would have been during an early transition between the early depression era of workers with few rights to the postwar era of UAW power.
Wow, thanks Paul. That was fascinating watching. A couple of comments based on my former career as a tooling automation engineer:
Those guys are WORKING. Given the thickness of the steel used, those roof stampings and frame X members are pretty heavy. No pneumatic assist lift or ergonomic pit for the guy bending over to put the wheel on.
No computer controlled automation there, it’s all done with cams and pneumatic relays. Changing the sequence or timing meant changing something mechanical, not just reprogramming a PLC
Not too many safety devices present, better not get in the way of those frame riveting machines,and that guy putting the radiator shell on better keep backing away from the car, cause they won’t stop if you get in the way. No safety glasses either, but notice the press operators have to put both hand on buttons to cycle the stamping.
Speaking of stamping, note how deep the draw in on the roof and fender. This gives the parts immense rigidity right out of the tooling. They’ll do almost anything to avoid that now, as deep draw = big tooling and big press stroke. I stood at the Twinsburg Stamping Plant (now gone) watching workers take Dodge Caravan roof panels out of the presses, they seemed hopelessly floppy by comparison.
Thanks again!!