How long did they take to build?

[rgshafto]

Here's a question I wonder about: How long did it take to actually build a new car in the various decades of the 20th century? My 1936 Pontiacs have innumerable fasteners, wiring terminals and miscellaneous parts that must have taken a long time to put together. For example, 8-10 glove box mounting bolts & screws, 5 bolts to anchor the cowl vent (manual says two people required to align it properly, etc.). That doesn't even count things like fitting all the wood in the door assembly. Obviously, line workers could assemble it all much faster than I can put mine back together, but I'm guessing it may have taken twice as much time as a modern car to produce, with a lot fewer people. Does anyone have any idea how much time it took to put together you standard American mass production car, say in the 30s, 50s and 90s?

[R W Burgess]

Good question, Bob. And, what kind of fast/powered tools did they have, air,electric,etc? Wayne

[Guest imported_PackardV8]

i believe Ford boasted 1 car per minute sometime during the very early 50's. Also remeber that during the pre-war and for a few years after WWII the assembly line workers worked at break neck speeds. "if you don't like your job there are 100 men standing in line at the gate who want it" Flint 1938. River Rouge 1937.

[Guest imported_klb]

They might drive one car per minute off the assembly, but doesn't that just mean they finished one car every minute?

Now how many hours did it take that car to travel down the assembly line from start to finish?

I've seen some of those numbers somewhere, I just can't recall where.

[Guest Skyking]

Now robots are building cars and the prices are 10 times higher..

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Now robots are building cars and the prices are 10 times higher.. </div></div>

Factoring in inflation they're really not much more expensive than they've always been. Using The Inflation Calculator, a $20,000 car in 2002 is the equivalent of:

1. A $5699 car in 1975.

2. A $3141 car in 1957.

3. A $1546 car in 1935.

4. A $1039 car in 1910.

Except for a brief period in the 1920's and early 1930's when the Model T and Model A dominated, car prices have been reasonably stable over the years. Given that modern cars have a much longer service life than any of our past cars and have vastly more complex saftey and performance systems, there really isn't a lot to complain about on that front.

[Aanderson44]

I seem to remember, from a pair of tours I was on at the Chevrolet Assembly plant in St Louis (1959 and 1960) as a teenager, that it took roughly 3 hours on the actual assembly line, from the time the bare frame was attached to the conveyor until the completed car was driven out the door.

Of course, there were a lot of things going on simultaneously--the body shells actually started (we were told) about an hour earlier than the chassis, and were finished just in time for them to be dropped onto the chassis.

In the morning of our tour, we saw a body shell go completely through the Fisher Body plant next door to the Assembly plant, then after a quick lunch, watched the chassis grow from a raw frame to completed, then the body drop, and final assembly of front clip, wheels & tires, hookup of all remaining wires & plumbing, fill with fluids, startup, out the door.

Art Anderson

[Guest Skyking]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Given that modern cars have a much longer service life than any of our past cars and have vastly more complex saftey and performance systems, </div></div>

Dave, although this is very true, how come you see less cars that are 10 or more years old now on the road. I remember in the 60's you would've seen alot of 20 year old cars on the road. If you watch an old movie that was filmed in the sixties, you see Model A's in the background. Today it seems everyone is driving new cars.

When I drive my daily driver, an 89 LeBaron convertible, I feel I am driving a dinosaur........

[Dave@Moon]

Except for just after WW2 the average vehicle fleet age in the U.S. is older now than ever. The <span style="font-style: italic">cars</span> all look the same because they don't change much any more. 4, 5, or even 6 years without so much as a minor facelift is commonplace today.

Compare your '89 LeBaron to the current Sebring. There've been 1 restyle and 1 redesign/name change since '89. Now imagine yourself tooling around the neighborhood in a 1949 Windsor convertible in 1964. In my boring middle-class neighborhood in 1964 you'd stick out less in a clown suit!

[nearchoclatetown]

rgshafto, I may have found what you are asking about. In a film, filmed in the 20's, from the Dodge Brothers club it says a car took 2 hours and 35 minutes to assemble, with one coming off the line every 45 seconds. Some other info is 13000 employees in one plant. They were building about 100000 cars a year at this point. They built 1600 engines a day. Used 85 tons of cast iron, 5 1/2 tons of horsehair and 500 leather hides every day. It shows them crashtesting and every car built was driven on a test course. The koolest part was the way they painted the bodies. They hosed them down with gasoline to remove any oily residue?, then one guy stood on each side with a garden hose and painted over an open pit to catch the excess. Kind of sounds like Hoover's technique.

[Al Smeraldo]

I used to take my auto mechanics classes to tour the GM plant in Linden N.J. One car a minute was driven off the line. I don't remember the actual time from start to finish of the final assembly but a figure of 22 to 25 man hours seems to stick in my mind. I don't recall whether this was just for the final assembly or included the time to make all the sub assemblies.

[Guest imported_Joe Kieliszek]

On last week's episode of Monster Garage, there was a factoid

before a commercial mentioning that about 400 Chevrolets were

being produced a day in 1954.

Joe Kieliszek

1911 Buick model 14

[Guest JT]

In the 1935 Packard 120 plant the total elapsed time from start of frame assembly to drive away was 4 hours- 2 minutes. This figure would not include sub assembly time.

The conveyor for painting operations was 2400 ft long (arranged in four parallel loops) which 290 ft of was the main drying oven.

[Guest Albert]

I have been to to both the Ford and a GM car plant a number of years ago and it was taking 24 to 26 hours for a car to travel from start to finish, this does not include the time spent building all the sub assemblies, and major components (motor/ tranni, rearends). I have a book "O.k. For Drive-away" which is based on the building of the 51 Packards, it took two hours for the engine block alone to cool after it was cast. But it was less than 22 hours to assemble the body to the frame and the interior/paint/trim, this does not include the time to build the running chassis or the time that was spent building the bare body shells.