How many Buicks made per day in 1957?

[buick man]

Just kicking some numbers around here to figure out the most probable date my car rolled off the assembly line.

So this is what's known: The GM Plant where my 1957 Buick was made, had a totol year production that started with the unit number 1001 and finished at the unit number of 38,462. That would make 37,461 total units produced.

What I do not know: I do not know on what month/day the production run started nor when it ended. I also do not know how many cars were produced on a given day and if they produced on each day of the week Monday thru Friday or if they produced just on certain days of a given week say Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday with Monday as a setup day and Friday as a shakedown day... or something like that.

Does anyone know how to go about getting this gnat-ass type of information down to an accurate single number? Perhaps there are plant production logs available for each of GM's 8 production plants in 1957 somewhere where Buicks were produced?

It would be kinda cool to know the exact day your Buick rolled off the assembly line. This would also aid one for example, in choosing among many other car collector gnat-ass little detail things such as the most likely correct historical plate number sequence for your particular Buick. - (If anyone wants to know what I mean here I could explain. Just let me know.)

So if you know how to go about determining this production detail infor - let us know!

[Topper1961]

Hi David!

This gonna be a realy interessting thread, I have discussed this subject many times with my 57 Buick friends, but there is so little information to get or find on the Internet. I once tried at the Albert Sloan museum to get some information about the Arlington Plant in Texas (had a Roadmaster which was produced there). I ended up with finding on my own some articles on Internet about the opening of the Plant and what cars they build there (among theme Big Series Pontiacs)

Would be nice if someone know people who worked at some of the plants that is still alive, or thoose who was responceble for the Plants records (arcives). I don`t know if GM has kept any and organized as a part of the history?

In Buick Heritage Alliance arcives, I have not either found anything about the year 1957 (may be I have not been looking good enough)

This bloggspot gave me at least something about the history and a lot of links, so it could be a start to check this or contact this guy

All Things Buick: B.O.P. & G.M.A.D.

Looking forward to follow this one!

Jorm

Edited November 7, 2010 by Topper1961
Adding text (see edit history)

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

Guys, not Buick, but probably applies. In 1957, I worked on the assembly line at the Ford plant in Milpitas, CA. Line speed was limited to, as I recall , 54 cars per hour due to union contract. GM was probably the same. May not help, but there it is!

Ben

[Rusty_OToole]

The information you seek may be on the build sheet. I don't know where Buick put them but common locations were in the springs of the back seat, behind the glove compartment and between the gas tank and floor.

Sometimes the manufacturer can supply a copy of the build records for a price.

[Centurion]

Interesting topic. For the 1959 Buicks, the monthly production reports for all assembly plants turned up over time on Ebay! On this basis, it has been possible for our '59 Division members to determine the month of assembly for their Buicks.

I believe that these monthly production reports came from autolit.com, so you might want to see if Walter Miller has anything similar for the 1957 model year.

Another possibility is to track down the car's original sales record. For my '59 Buick, I learned last year that the original selling dealership (still in business) has maintained its sales records since the mid-1930's. I was able to obtain copies of the original sales information for my car, which included the factory invoice date. I understand that the factory invoice date is likely the exact date of the car's final assembly.

I know it may be a stretch tracking down some of this information for your '57 Buick, but you might be surprised what can turn up.

[buick man]

Thanks guys. My car was purchased from Bill Murphy's Buick in the L.A. Area.

I contacted Autolit.com and let them know what we are trying to do here on this thread/post. Thanks Centurion for the leads!

Rusty, I did not know that you could find the Build Sheets behind the glove compartment box. Thanks for that tip as well. I will have to check that out. Next week I am dropping my gas tank to clean out the hibernating gas tank. I will look for any build sheets. Did not find anything under the back seat.

Anyone else have anything to comment on, let's hear it.

[buick man]

First Born said about 25 cars per hour. What does that mean exactly? Completed cars coming off the line and driving away? If so, what days did the production produce cars, was it everyday or just on certain days or was it 5 days a week at 25 cars per hour completed?

[Larry Schramm]

Typically an assembly plant would run about 50-60 cars an hour. Might be a little higher or lower depending on demand. The 50-60 cars an hour are vehicles being built and shipped as complete units out the door.

The number of hours are usually 8 hours a day 5 days a week Monday through Friday.

If there is a great demand then the line would run longer maybe 9 or 10 hours a day and maybe Saturday also. Anything more than 40 hours a week is overtime and would be because of high demand for that vehicle.

The 50-60 vehicles/hour does not include specialty vehicles like large trucks, small volume like the Reatta, SSR, Viper, etc and other limited production vehicles. Those vehicles might be as low as 5-10/hour depending on production capability which hopefully would match sales expectations.

I cannot tell you what a particular plant run rate was for a particular year because the run rate would change depending on demand, etc.

Edited November 8, 2010 by Larry Schramm (see edit history)

[buick man]

Great info so far! So with all this infomation so far, what is missing is the average year model production time run.

Well I will take a few power hits of my Monster Beverage here and start my calculations:

The Questions, Quesions: (So using our example, a 1957 Model Year Buick) When in 1956 would the first 1957 Buick come off the line? Would it be August of 56 or September of 56 and when would the run end, say July of 1957?

The Hypothetical:

The Math - If it was say, August of 1956, then at a production rate of 50 cars/hour X 8 hours/shift X 5 days/week X 4 pay period/month X 10 months = Approximately Cars per shift: 450 units; Cars per week: 3,600 units; Cars per month: 14,400 units; Total Production Model Run Year to 10 Month Date: 144,000 total produced units as per normal average operating capacity. So if all 8 plants ran at this capacity the total estimated yearly run could have been nearly 1,152,000 Total Units Produced by all 8 plants pumping steady.

The Historical:

However ... Now checking Buicks Historical Total All Plants Production totals for 1957 we add and calculate this to be: (Note: All production runs at every plant started with 001001 as it's first unit preceded with one of the 8 production plant designations below)

D1 Flint, Mich; D2 Southgate, CA; D3 Linden; D4 Kansas City; D5 Wilmington; D6 Atlanta; D7 Framingham; D8 Arlington

For 1957 Buick had: ( Buick Models for 1957 )

7 separate Special Models - Total: 220,746 Units

5 separate Century Models - Total: 65,966 Units

3 separate Super Models - Total: 70,635 Units

7 separate Roadmaster Models - Total: 47,751 Units

Grand Total Actual Production From All 8 Plants: 405,098 Total Units Produced ... (A 35% of capacity capability of the 1,152,000 hypothetical units possible.)

This means they produced only about 1/3 what they were capable of producing at full tilt. So we need to adjust our numbers and assuming for simplicity that each plant produced the same output which is probably not completely true, but for our purposes let's just plug it in anyway since this was a slow year for Buick and it was no doubt slow for each plant regardless.

So 35 % of a possible 50 car production/hour turns out to be an 18 cars per hour on average production rate. However Buick probably cranked out cars everyday up and until late January of 1957 when the line started to slow way down. This would account for the introduction of the Model 75 Roadmaster Series to help boost sales. Which by the way is the actual reason Buick introduced the 75 Series. The numbers kinda put things into perspective for us.

So taking my car's data for example and using this hypothetical premise, then my car was most likely built in the first week of December 1956 and was on the showroom floor in time for Christmas of that year. (Maybe)

Some Needless Bits of Information for the Frontal Lobe:

Well .... you know the average length of the 1957 Buick is about 17 feet long. So 17 feet times 405,098 total units if put bumper to bumper would create a drive-in movie entrance line jam that would be: 6,886,666.00 feet long or some 1,304 miles long. Gee I hope you bought your movie entrance tickets early! Kinda Like lining the cars up bumper to bumper from San Francisco down to L.A. and then Back up to San Francisco again. Or looking at in a Sammy Hager point of view, At 55 miles an hour it takes about 8-hours just to get to L.A. Or looking at it another way, if you really wanted to pass this really long line of cars in the slow lane you would need to drive for 21 hours just to pass from the last car to get to the leading car. Geesh. That is probably why Sammy just could not Drive - 55 !!!! And if you are stopped on a long bridge I hope the bridge holds because since each Buick weighs an average of 4,250 lbs, then the total production run for 1957 required nearly 860,833 Tons of Steel or 660 Tons per mile.

Ok guys, let me hear it...

Edited November 9, 2010 by buick man (see edit history)

[Larry Schramm]

Not all plants only built Buicks. Some of those plants probably built Pontiacs & Oldsmobiles in addition to Buicks. The only plant that just Buicks were built in I believe would have been Flint. There might have been some Chevrolet production in some of those plants too, but I do not know.

[Rusty_OToole]

GM plants used to shut down in late July - early August for summer vacation. Model changeover took place at this time. First cars came off the line near the end of August for an early September introduction date.

[buick man]

This is good to know. But if they were also building Olds and Pontiacs in the same factory would they not have designated areas and lines of production just for those Makes and not be superimposed over the existing Buick lines? I really don't know how they would go about building these cars, but it seems to me that they would need designated production areas for each GM Make rather than mixing the lines up since you would need designated holding areas for parts of that particular make as it went down the line.

Also, taking into consideration the total number of units that the Buick Division put out each of the 8 plants most likely had to have designated production lines so the line could go full tilt boogie if needed or slow down as needed.

Of course this is only a hypothesis of mine. Does anyone actually know how they accomplished the production? Designated areas and lines or did they do the same lines do Buick one day and Pontiacs the next? If so they would of had to have some way to re-stage out materials and parts for that days model production run.

IF they manufactured in this fashion, then I would have to revisit my hypothetical production thesis since my date of my car could then be way off.

Still trying to figure this one out without papers as such. I think if we can get more production facts and criteria together we could come up with a plausible plan.

[1957buickjim]

I would venture to guess that since the 40/60 series shared the same body as the 88, the plants would build Buick / Olds only. Pontiacs and Chevies shared the same body, so it would make more sense to have themin the same plant. However, the 50 / 70 Series shared the same body with the Olds 98 and the Cadillac, so they may have been assembled in the same plant. However...since the bodies were made by Fisher Body...they could have been produced at a Fisher Body Plant and shipped to the various GM division plants. What would be helpful here is a listing of the plants that were open in 1957 for GM by division. Don't know if that is available from GM archives or not, but that should help define the assembly points for the vehicles.

[Rusty_OToole]

So far as I know in the US each division had its own assembly plants. New model introduction typically started within a week or so after Labor Day. Actual production would commence a couple of weeks before this time, so cars could be in the showrooms of all dealers on introduction day.

None of this was guaranteed. Sometimes there were problems with new models that delayed introduction but GM was pretty regular in the 50s and I doubt they missed any intro date by more than a few days.

Each division set their own introduction days too. I vaguely recall Buick brought out their new models a week or 2 later than Chev and Ford.

[Larry Schramm]

Each brand in GM did not have an exclusive plant of their own except their home plant. That would be Oldsmobile in Lansing, Buick in Flint, Pontiac in Pontiac, Cadillac at the old Fleetwood plant in Detroit. Chevrolet did have their own plants because of volume.

Each plant only has one assembly line and the cars would come down the same line at the same time. There could be a Buick followed by a Pontiac followed by an three Olds in a row. That is the way they built vehicle then and still to this day. Mix would be determined by sales.

[TG57Roadmaster]

Dave Corbin can probably answer this question quickly, so maybe he'll pick on it soon.

On May 13, 1955, Jackie Gleason visited the Linden, NJ, B-O-P plant to pick up his new

'55 Roadmaster 'vert, part of Buick's sponsorship deal for his new show, "The Honeymooners."

Larger

I believe the Olds & Pontiac letters were removed from this prduction schedule sign

for this photo-op, as only Buick is shown. Though it's '55, I don't believe the system was

much different at each of the assembly plants that built our '57s.

Dave can usually pin down a car's date of manufacture, so I'd wait for his response

before doing major math postulations.

Great thread idea, BTW!

TG

[PONTIAC1953]

i don't know if buick stop and start production the same time as pontiac, back in the fifties, the current model year production would end in october, and the next year model started in november, charles coker, 1953 pontiac tech advisor.

[TG57Roadmaster]

The closest I can get is this chart from the 1957 Automotive News Almanac,

showing manufacturers' locations for 1956, including plants under construction.

The '58 Almanac (covering '57 production) doesn't include such a chart...

Larger

Larger

You'll find B-O-P plants peppered all over the country; for Buick VIN purposes,

it breaks down like this...

1= Flint

2= Southgate

3= Linden

4= Kansas City

5= Wilmington

6= Atlanta

7= Framingham

8= Arlington

Have fun!

TG

Edited November 15, 2010 by TG57Roadmaster (see edit history)

[Sweepspear]

Great thread!

[Guest P.M.O.]

The closest I can get is this chart from the 1957 Automotive News Almanac,

showing manufacturers' locations for 1956, including plants under construction.

The '58 Almanac (covering '57 production) doesn't include such a chart...

Larger

Larger

You'll find B-O-P plants peppered all over the country; for Buick VIN purposes,

it breaks down like this...

1= Flint

2= Southgate

3= Linden

4= Kansas City

5= Wilmington

6= Atlanta

7= Framingham

8= Arlington

Have fun!

TG

I would add this it might help

[buick man]

Came across this old thread and had completely forgot about it. Just thought I would breath some new life into this oldie but goodie thread because since posting back then, I have found out a few things regarding my Roadie build date.

Well for starters, my firewall Vin Tag has as a Body Number 57 which means my body in 1957 at the L.A. Sorthgate plant was the 57th body made. Gee. Well kinda, sorta groovy. 57th body for 1957... Hmmm, Cosmic Maybe? ...... Don't know but Just say'n:rolleyes:

All this According to the link provided here: Classic Car Specifications, Engine, Wheelbase, production numbers, VIN numbers for Antique Cars, Classic Cars, Vintage Cars and Muscle Cars

The production numbers started at 1001 at all 8 plants around the country. So using my VIN number and estimating an hourly average rate of 55 cars, or an average daily 8-hour production rate of 440 cars, then my car was built near or around the 17th day of production. At the Southgate plant, the production run went to 7D2038462.

So lets see. Using this information from this link, and doing the production math numbers and inputing my production VIN number and using 55 cars / hour as a rate I should also be able to narrow the build day date number down. So using the total numbers put out at the Southgate plant for that model year I get, 37,461 Buicks made in 1957. That puts my car however using this approach at about the 10th production day or so. That is 7 days sooner than using the other method above. ... Hmmm?

Gee, - Not that many really considering they had an average build capacity of around 440 cars a day. Of course they build my car in the fall of 1956 and the economy was still raging or going along at a pretty good clip. I know the economy sucked that 1957-58 time frame, but according to the U.S. national accounting and budget numbers the 57-58 recession really did not take hold until the second quarter or so in 57 and started to show signs of easing by mid 58. So anyway, something like 86 actual production days at full bore. Mmm. But as was stated way earlier on page-1, the production assembly line could of used the method of mixed GM makes on the same assembly track going down the line. However with that said, I have never seen any old photos of GM cars going down the assembly line of this era with mixed GM Makes going down one line at the same time. ie, A Pontiac, then an Olds, then a Buick, so on and so forth. I have only seen photos of the same Make all in one line but different models of that particular GM Make. So I would reason how it was done is just a certain X number of say Pontiacs or Buicks would run down the line for that day followed the next day with just Pontiacs or Olds or Buicks then the next day a new mix. But never an inter mix within the same hour or day perhaps.

My car appears however, to have had all the 'revisionary updates performed' ie. like the extended heat temp gauge which was a national service call change order and things like that done.

Somewhere I have the production month start date and the last production stop run dates as well. So I will have to find that information and post it here just for kicks.

Edited February 13, 2013 by buick man (see edit history)