if i was to guess i would think dedicated line for each. where full size buicks and Olds also built in Oshawa?

Interesting. So that pretty much confirms they came off the same line.

I have to wonder why 2 full size cars that came off the same line didn't share the same oil change decal. And I have no doubt the 12,000 mile Pontiac decal I have a picture of and this 20,000 mile Chevy decal were both installed at the time of assembly.

LT1Caddy wrote:

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I'm pretty sure the Poncho and Chev came down the same line mixed together. My buddy who worked there passed away last year, he told me some great stories. But I have seen a picture of a B body car with Chev emblems on one rear quarter and Pontiac on the opposite side....LOL

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 That sounds like the sort of goof you'd hear about with Chrysler products of that era. Different door trim on each side.

 

 

There is a guy about a block from me that retired from GM Oshawa. When I asked him years ago he also said that the big cars came down Line 1 with mixed big car brands, the rest (Chevy II thru 67, Corvair thru 66, plus most A-bodies) came down Line 2. Maybe I have the line or plant terminology wrong.

I do remember the old GM Headquarters in uptown Oshawa, still used by GM in 1989 when I rode there and asked Dave Dow to document my '67. The Autoplex by the water was in use then but they still used the old uptown Office (gone now). The next block from  there was  the North Plant, and it was still in operation then. I think it was torn down around the turn of the millennium, along with the old HQ.

I think the emblem errors are from the era when they were stuck on. I remember seeing some GMT400's come into the dealership off the truck with Chevrolet on one side and GMC on the other.

Mixed.

I believe that only a few plants were the exception - all the rest did it this way;
One exception might be the Pontiac home plant - that would have only built Pontiac models - but it did several model on the same line.
The vehicles coming down the line had no intentional order as far as I know, the makes/models were mixed as the orders were processed.

Just because they came down the same line did not mean they used ANY of the same parts;
As I have understood it, each division created and supplied parts for their own cars;
Production workers had parts codes for every part to be installed.

A great example to me is the 1969 F-bodies;
The two cars were the same platform, and built at the same plant;
For what ever reason, Chevrolet and Pontiac went so far as to use different wheel codes for what was the same wheel;
The typical 1969 Camaro SS with no wheel option, but F70-14 would have used an 'XT' coded wheel, while the Firebird with the same tire would have used an 'IF' wheel;
The 'XT' and 'IF' wheels were made by the same suppliers, and had the same offset;
Side by side, they are the same wheel - but they were manufactured for different GM divisions.
There are some documented exceptions where Camaros were built with the "Pontiac" wheel - It is my belief that this was a case where Pontiac parts were allocated for use in the (built at higher numbers) Chevrolet (Camaro); possibly because of supply or excess inventory.

With this in mind it stands to reason that the Canadian Pontiac and Canadian Chevrolet went so far as to use different oil fill decals;
The build sheets would have called up the specific stickers - sometimes the worker would screw up, but they also wouldn't care too much, and would have built as per the sheet which called out the part(s) they were there to install.

4SPEED427 wrote:

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LT1Caddy wrote:

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4SPEED427 wrote:

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It's hard to imagine that happening if the holes are predrilled for the emblems. I doubt the holes are the same from Chevy to Pontiac?

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 Holes were not drilled then. Emblems stuck on with 3m super tape...

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 In 1966????

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 LOL..... Sorry Carl. You are right, the stick on emblems were in the 80's. I KNOW for sure that happened I saw it. My buddy was the one who told me about them cutting the shifter hole on the 66's with a torch, he was there 20 + years. But I don't know if in the 60's the cars were mixed on the same line

Canadian Poncho wrote:

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I think the emblem errors are from the era when they were stuck on. I remember seeing some GMT400's come into the dealership off the truck with Chevrolet on one side and GMC on the other.

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 I recall when my dad worked at a Pontiac dealer in the 1980s that it wasn't uncommon to have things like different emblems, hubcaps, etc. on cars when they were unloaded.  Like a Parisienne with Parisienne on one side and Bonneville on the other, Acadian/Chevette, etc.  Also Pontiacs with Chevy hubcaps in the trunk, interior emblems that didn't match the exterior, etc.

I also recall my friend's uncle, who worked at the Scarborough van plant telling us that their lunch room had a pop machine that dispensed beer... so maybe it's not so hard to imagine that these things could happen.  I've also heard general stories about plants in the sixties and seventies (and probably eighties and beyond) where incorrect trim parts were installed intentionally because they ran out of the correct parts and it would have been expensive to shut down the line waiting for a resupply... so they were told to install whatever was on hand.

All that said, the plant stories are second or third hand, but I saw the cars at the dealer with my own eyes.

I worked in the body shop and toolroom of the Chrysler Brampton assembly plant for 25 years and I agree stuff till slip through it was not intentional. There were weld inspectors and the end of each sub assembly line and when items like holes, twisted welds, missing welds and missing sealer were found the line was shut down to fix the problem. As well the cars were checked downstream to find the first bad part/car and these were contained and fixed back to when/where the bad part was found.
Our mission was to not ship any bad cars forward. I will say honestly we were not perfect and stuff did get pushed forward but it was not because it was ignored. The guys I worked with put the effort in. Now this was the 90s to now not even be 60s and 70s

LT1Caddy wrote:

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Here is a story some will remember from the early 90's if you lived near Peterborough Ontario. GM would ship parts to plants by plane if there was shortage, in fact the same day (I was told by guys who worked at plants in the USA, Kokomo, Anderson)
GM Oshawa ran out of parts for something, they flew the parts in late one night and the plane overshot the runway almost ending up on 115 just east of the 7A cutoff. No injuries

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 I used to hear a radial multi-engined plane overhead and saw a WWII-era vintage Dakota  My dad work at the Warplane Heritage Museum in Mount Hope when he retired, and told me that GM was using the Dakota to fly in bumpers and parts to Oshawa from Michigan.

Was that the plane? I seem to remember the Dakota operating overhead later than that, like late 90s or 2001 even. It sure made me look up when I heard it and wondered what it was.

-- Edited by CdnGMfan on Thursday 21st of March 2024 02:36:56 PM