Trying to map out the restoration 'families' of cars

[8E45E]

Through to the 1960's, it was within car manufacturers, and on one continent.  Starting in 1974, GM brought out their first 'world car', the T-body Chevette in Brazil, which expanded to England and North America by 1976.  That would be considered "family".  Ford followed with a 'world car' in late 1980 with the Escort.  In the mid-1980's platform sharing between different manufacturers became common. For example, the Fiat Chroma, Lancia Thema, Alfa Romeo 164, and the Saab 9000 share the same 'Type Four' platform.  And its very common between VW, Audi and Porsche sharing 'family' engines and bodies.  And when Ford owned Jaguar, the X-Type and Lincoln Zephyr were 'family'.  

 

In a lot of ways 'family' killed their manufacturers like it did British Leyland and cost GM plenty with BRAND DILUTION; five or more different marques all looking the same.  GM could have learned from BMC in the 1960's where there were at least two platforms spread among six marques looking almost the same except the grilles.  The Farina-bodied BMC products, Austin Cambridge, MG Magnette, Morris Oxford, Riley 4/72, Wolseley 6/110, and Vanden Plas Princess 4 Litre R all bore family resemblance.  As successful as GM redesigned and downsized 1977 full size line was, they all look too much alike, and when one found out he had an Oldsmobile engine in his Cadillac and successfully sued GM, 'family' suddenly became a liability to their manufacturer; not a cost-saving asset.

 

Craig 

[Barney Eaton]

I don't know what GM got out of their tooling back in the '40-'60,  but with the production they had, they probably went thru sever dies for fenders etc during a model run. 

Let say you could get 50,000 fender from a die before it needed major rework or replacement....when you are building 250,000 a year, the math says 5 dies.

It was the independents that stretched out usage of their tooling.  If they were only making 50K car a year,  they might be able to rebuild the die with a redesign and get another 50K out the next year. 

So design changes were not that costly for the big 3 because they would need to replace the dies/tooling after some number anyway.