I have always been in amazement that the Fleetwood Plant could turn out a couple thousand fully painted and trimmed Cadillac bodies a day in the 1960's to ship by truck to Clark Plant final assembly. I have always wondered if there were separate sections or floors set aside for producing different models and staff that were trained to assemble just Calais or DeVille or Fleetwood bodies ?. I don't imagine that anyone that were there are still alive today to tell about it however I would Love to know.
Clark Street Assembly closed in December of 1987, so there would be plenty of workers still alive. It was supposed to close when the front-wheel-drive models started production at the new Hamtramck assembly plant. There was still strong demand for the rear-wheel-drive models, so it closed a few years after Hamtramck opened.
I too have always been amazed at the amount of vehicles manufactured by these plants in any calendar year.
When looking at the production numbers, then with some simple mathematical calculations, like working days, models, plants, etc, it doesn't allow for much time for the cars to come off the assembly line, ready to sell. Then when one sees the holding yards to carry the completed stock before shipping, the logistics are mind-boggling.
One forgets about all the holding of parts prior to building as well.
Bruce. >:D
I feel the same. It's amazing too not just the speed of which so many thousands upon thousands of Cadillacs were pumped out by mostly manual labor way before robotic machines at the plants, but with such high build quality, accuracy and craftsmanship as well.
Computer programming allowed faster and better tracking of supplier components, in-house parts inventory, assembly sequence, purchasing, and many other behind the scenes functions. When you think about the pre-computer days, it really took a lot of workers and coordination to make it all work.
When did Fleetwood stop making car bodies?
Quote from: billyoung on January 27, 2023, 06:22:59 AMI have always been in amazement that the Fleetwood Plant could turn out a couple thousand fully painted and trimmed Cadillac bodies a day in the 1960's to ship by truck to Clark Plant final assembly. I have always wondered if there were separate sections or floors set aside for producing different models and staff that were trained to assemble just Calais or DeVille or Fleetwood bodies ?. I don't imagine that anyone that were there are still alive today to tell about it however I would Love to know.
Bill...I posted this video a while back in case you haven't seen it before. It was filmed late November 1987, slightly over a month before production at the Clark Street plant came to an end. I don't know whether it'll answer your questions but hopefully you'll find it helpful as well as entertaining.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjf-FNvrXqw
Thanks for posting that video. I have saved it for watching later, but one part of it really opened my eyes, and that was the chassis assembly of the running gear. All those chassis aligned, side by side, getting diffs and front ends. I would have thought they would have been done in a running assembly line, not a static adjascent line.
Bruce. >:D
Quote from: jwwseville60 on January 31, 2023, 04:50:07 PMWhen did Fleetwood stop making car bodies?
As I recall, Fleetwood closed in December 1987, too. It was also torn down.
I have a brick and a section of maple flooring salvaged from the Clark Street plant during demolition. I believe it was closed December 31st 1987. The last cars seen rolling off the line were 1988 Broughams as shown in the video. Prior to the Linden Plant which began producing Eldorado & DeVille models in 1972, nearly every Cadillac made from 1921 to 1971 was born within the walls of Clark Street.