FISHER BODY GENERAL MOTORS AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURE 44174

This film introduces its viewer to Fisher Body Division of General Motors, and touts the use of computers in the development and manufacturing of automobiles. Fisher Body was an automobile coachbuilder founded by the Fisher brothers in 1908 in Detroit, Michigan; it was a division of General Motors for many years, but in 1984 was dissolved into other General Motors divisions. Fisher & Company (originally Alrowa Metal Products) continues to use the name. The name was well known to the public, as General Motors vehicles displayed a "Body by Fisher" emblem on their door sill plates until the mid-1990s.
The pictures opens in a laboratory near Detroit, Michigan, as structural engineers are shown working at their computer screens and the narrator explains how their work is designed to test new automobile bodies. “What is remarkable is that these bodies have not yet been built,” the narrator says at mark 00:40. “They are mathematical models in a computer, and scale models in plastic and metal built with the aid of computers.” He continues at mark 01:06: “This use of computer design is the kind of innovative thinking necessary in the automotive industry today. The kind of thinking that traditionally has been the mark of the innovators of Fisher Body.” With that, a high-tech display (by 1980s standards) of the film’s title, “The Innovators,” appears on a large computer monitor. The camera pans along rolls of steel, lines of aluminum, glass, and plastic, and yards of fabric and vinyl all being shaped and cut “to satisfy the personal mobility desires and needs of people in the United States and around the world.”
The materials come from suppliers around the world, we are told at mark 02:28, to be joined together into a new automobile body. At mark 03:07, we see an animation of an cut-away car body, “the part of the car people ride in. The part they see and touch.” While automobile bodies were once separate from the frame. With the gas shortage of the 1970s came a need for lighter cards that would consume less fuel. By the 1980s, we are told, General Motors was working on fulfilling that need, and we see footage of a project team discussing potential designs and then implementing them. “The end result is … a full-sized model of each new GM automobile carefully sculpted in clay,” the audience is told starting at mark 06:30.
But there is still work to do before the model becomes a full-fledged automobile, and the film takes us to scenes of precision tools measuring each inch of the model and that data fed into a computer so that a steel-and-aluminum body can be created. The relatively “new” idea of using aluminum, along with plastic and steel, is visited beginning at mark 08:20, as we see engineers evaluating such material, followed by scenes of veteran factory workers assembling car parts by hand, and the “sweetening” of the design by engineers sitting at computer terminals. Computers can also be used to program tools to work on the rough shaping of some parts, “leaving the fine detail work to his irreplaceable human touch.”
A car model is next created in plastic, we learn at mark 11:30, at half the actual size, to learn about the structural performance of a vehicle. A half-scale steel model comes next. Although both versions are useful, they cannot totally replace the need for a full-size prototype body, we are told at mark 13:13. “Quality. Durability. And reliability. These are the goals of all this laboratory testing.”
As comprehensive as laboratory testing are, the narrator explains near mark 15:00 that they still do not provide as much information as actual on-road handling, conducted at General Motors Proving Ground facilities in Michigan and Arizona. A number of scenes shows the viewer the carefully controlled test procedures as we see vehicles zig in and out around orange cones and across twisting roads. Two years after the first clay model was made, the latest GM model is ready for production. Mark 17:30 shows us the various production processes, as the narrator explains that as many as 115 different models may be made in a single year. From the cutting of fabric to the welding of seams, the narrator explains that quality is always upmost importance.
Come mark 22:20, the viewer is told: “The body that began as designer’s clay has emerged in hard steel.”
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[@jamespn]

The GM 77 full size and 78 intermediates were well received and designed within a much shorter lead time using CAD/CAM. I always liked the 77 2 door Caprice and the 2 door Deville.

[@corvettejimmy3323]

Some of the best production cars made

[@stevecattani9545]

Terrific narration and score.

[@jayelbee1111]

Great film by Fisher Body Division building the X-Body of Chevrolet Citation, Pontiac Phoenix, Buick Skylark and Oldsmobile Omega.

[@stevevarholy2011]

In the wooden buck scenes, noty only do you see the X-Bodies, but also a right rear quarter greenhouse of a J-body sedan.

[@jonnyalfaro2645]

Seeing factory fresh G body being put together man awesome

[@nlpnt]

I think it was Lutz who said dissolving Fisher Body was probably the worst single thing that happened in Roger Smith's massive cluster of a reorg, since "they were the organization within GM that knew how to actually build a car."

[@PooyanDoozandeh]

Can’t believe this is just 40 years ago. It’s like a heaven from another world.

[@ADAPTATION7]

The logistics behind car making are huge.

[@JeffersonMartinSynfluent]

Narration by Peter Thomas who last did voiceovers for Forensic Files.

[@dabneytatum6554]

I knew the voice checked credits no name checked comments and there was the mention, thanks

[@deanster3435]

I knew his voice was familiar. I love his voice over for Forensic Files and I was pretty upset when he passed. I wish him the best of luck

[@mitchsalawine5420]

Also for "A Vietnam Requiem" a PBS special which was later sampled by Paul Hardcastle to make the song" 19" Peter almost sued for unauthorized use of his voice, but later decided against it.

[@fujifrontier]

I KNEW his voice was familiar!!!!

[@fxsrider]

Immediately recognized his voice. I was wondering who the engineers killed off for insurance money.

[@tobyl55]

This guy narrated every slideshow I ever saw in school in the 80s and 90s.

[@errorsofmodernism7331]

yes, I remember this voice in NASA films

[@LynxStarAuto]

That's Peter Thomas of Forensic Files fame.

[@willrun4fun]

Several G and X body late 1970s cars. I owned several Oldsmobile Cutlasses from that era.

[@vinnydaq13]

I owned a 1973 Olds Delta 88 Royale....what a boat!

[@troycarothers8254]

2:00 I remember seeing this catalytic convertor shell on my 1980 Citation.

[@thewiseguy3529]

I love these. I spend all my time on them. 💓

[@dueljet]

This video is awesome!

[@danam2584]

Those crash test clips scare the hell out me!

[@TS-ev1bl]

GM was in the middle of committing three of its biggest sins ever when this film was made - the X-cars, the V8-6-4, and the Olds 350 diesel. Those engineering and marketing debacles chased away millions of previously loyal GM customers who never came back.

[@spg_eagle]

The Vega was the real beginning of the end to GM’s reign

[@kennethsouthard6042]

I think you forgot a couple, the Cimarron, the HT4100 and the look alike cars of the 80s. Most of these decisions hit Cadillac their most profitable line the hardest.

[@Andrew-bb3lc]

Funny and they are still the #1 US auto producer and in sales. Their good deeds more than sufficiently offset their mistakes.

[@johnnyhawkins43]

I can dig it!

[@noahbossier1131]

from 1979

[@cjennons]

I grew up in Flint, Michigan. I lived on the north side by the Buick plant. I left in 1984 to join the Air Force. The decline of GM was already beginning 🙁....

[@teresa67factoid95]

Wow now we know how gm created their most beautiful car.....the citation!!!

[@andypetrovich2155]

Citation is the full-size Chevette.

[@chrisdabrowski449]

@@andypetrovich2155 Nothing wrong about the Chevette or Citation. Good cars, lasted a long time with me with minimal repairs.

[@marine4lyfe85]

Chevette was ok, after you drop a 350sbc in it.

[@buy.to.let.britain]

the background music was by the e-street band (associated with bruce springsteen)

[@Louis-kk3to]

The Fisher coch people would think we're going crazy

[@JuanAdam12]

Designing cars should have been a dream job but it looks like sheer hell, poking at computer screen instead of putting pencil to paper.

[@christophereichorn5036]

I see 1982 GM A-Body FWD Olds Cutlass Cirea's side roofline in 1979! Also i see GM J-body FWD in 1979!

[@Muttleytech]

Good lookin lady @ 12:27.

[@265hemi7]

Old now ! 👍😀🇺🇲

[@hilldwler420]

The same narrator from forensic files tv show.

[@fujifrontier]

I came here to say this lmaooo the cold case guy

[@redawson001]

9.20 looks like a Citation

[@PooyanDoozandeh]

A lot of people complain about those cars and their problems and GM mistakes. But where were these people when GM got things right? There are so many GM cars from 70s, 80s, and 90s that were more reliable than their Japanese and European competitors, and yet, these people were and are dead silent about those cars.

[@fourdoorglory5945]

Familiar voice of the narrator. Anyone know his name?

[@LynxStarAuto]

Peter Thomas. Most famous for Forensic Files.

[@Mark-ce3gp]

Wonder how she got this 'cake ' job on the line??? Anyone who worked hourly to the "Big 3" will know. 24:39

[@daves_NOT_Here_Man]

How a RUST SICKLE is made!

[@jonb5817]

I miss the groovy bellbottoms.

[@RadioKilla07]

Unfortunately I doubt GM has this caliber of Quality control anymore as they did in this film

[@jm1551701]

I remember these cars from the 80s The GM Mistakes is what they where I was a mechanic in the 80s and 90s and I remember working on these pieces of junk that GM had produced this is when all the cost cutting and shit material was being introduced into there line of cars these cars where known as GM throw away cars they where junk!! I see all these engineers working these models, well they sure wasted there time didn't they the X- Body and Chrysler and Ford where no better, I think this is when the Gov. must have really clamped down on the Big 3 to produce lighter and more fuel efficient cars well they produced garbage, I'm venting because I was one of those Mechanics that had to fix there crap, One of them was the Olds 350 diesel. what Garbage, they used a gasoline engine block and turned it into a diesel, what a massive screw up, the engine constantly over heated and then eventually the blocks and or heads warped or cracked, just a list of disasters, they used way to much thin sheet metal in there designs, for instance on the Camaros the rear shock towers where made with very thin sheets of sheet metal and the shock mounts where literally tearing apart from the shock mount, and when a customer would come in for a repair they would ask us if we could weld it up I would say Nope!!! could not weld because it was too damn thin, Remember the Chevy Citation "GARBAGE"

[@nitrometh42]

cars of the 80s.......JUNK!!!

[@cameronjournal]

Those bodies would rust in three months.

[@brianbooher7318]

You should see the the Detroit plant today.looks likes world War was fought their

[@howebrad4601]

What I see are people all doing their best to make a good product. GMs problems came from accountants telling engineering to cut corners on things like smoothness and refinement. They show the x car here in development which at that time was the right sized car for the time. GM management pushed it’s release before all the engineering was done and we all know the result. Look at the 2.5 liter 4 cylinder engine. Barely adequate is what I’d call it. A few more months of work were needed to smooth it out and make it sound less agricultural

[@ScottSchindewolf]

i inherited my grandpas 85 citation ii, with a little over 400k miles, its still going a strong. Has most of the horses from the 81 engine that was put in. i hope i can restore it to the beauty shown in the factory.

[@kevinjachim2378]

all that equipment and GM still made rolling turds.

[@gm12551]

By punch in punch out type of people

[@LynxStarAuto]

Too much redundancy in the design and testing. Too inefficient: Build a half scale model out of plastic. Then build a half scale model out of steel. Subject to testing and destruction rigors of a full scale model. Then build a full scale model out of steel (by hand). Only to have to subject the full scale model to the same testing and destruction rigors of the half scale models. 😳😵‍💫 So many unnecessary, and redundant steps. So much expense. Then they penny pinch everywhere else, and the resulting product is lackluster. 🤷‍♂️

[@dwayneday9458]

Eighteen hundred an hour by oldsmobile employ bonus each five hundred of under Each unit of car at 45,000 dallor Mary Barra CEO of GM Oldsmobile buick onwer of GM

[@AntoineMiller]

The devil X body cars...pure junk. Parents had an ‘82 citation 2 door burgundy shit box. Horrible X body cars but great video.

[@roaddawg3217]

Well, I was thinking about this, consider the era, Pablo and the boys in S.A. were in their prime, there were a LOT of high ass people back then😅

[@bry4950]

Very interesting but these cars are certainly not beautiful.

[@bobwallace9814]

This is the early 80's. These GM cars poorly built and engineered. At the same time Toyota was selling Corollas for $5995-6995, Tercels for $4995, Celica's for $6995 to $12995 for Supra. Camry had just come out at $7995-$8995. Cressida for $12995 and a myriad of small pickups from $4995- $7995. GM's comparable car was thousands higher because of the workers benefits included in the price. They simply could not compete. Their answer to Toyota came a few years later with Saturn.

[@gtown150]

You are spot on! Unions busted the wage scale of this Country. Good for a purpose at one point but outlived its usefulness along the way. If they didn’t get what they wanted they went on strike. Management figured out that tactic quickly and closed the plant.

[@kennethsouthard6042]

GM was bloated as well. Look at this video, it's about Fisher Body that in many ways still acted like an independent company even though its only customers were the GM divisions and it had been acquired about 50 years prior to this video. You essentially, had this and other fiefdoms within GM all bloated with layers of management.

[@0utc4st1985]

@@kennethsouthard6042 Absolutely. Both management and the unions played major roles in plowing the company into the ground. It's too bad because some of their cars from that era I personally liked, I owned a late 80's Olds Delta and loved it despite its workmanship/design shortcomings.

[@pryme2013]

This is not exactly accurate. I had a 82 Toyota 4wd pickup and still had the original window sticker. It was 10,400 in 1982. Which was a lot more than a Full-size American pickup. And the Toyota was way smaller.

[@bobwallace9814]

@@pryme2013 You did an apples to orange comparison. Your Toyota price would be for an SR5 model which was top of the line. You had AC, 4x4, radio with tape, much larger and upgraded tires and wheels, CPP package, tow, cloth seats, rear slider, mud flaps, floor mats and probably power windows. None of this would come on the 4 speed base model which was sold for $4995 all day long. Compare your Toyota to Chevrolet's top of the line 4x4 Silverado and the price will not be more.

[@DannyBoy-vs3gd]

The decline of American ingenuity

[@michaeljones9255]

American auto maker's putting together the car's of the 80's, trying to compete with the Japanese auto maker's. A bunch of crap cars that could barely last 100,000 miles! Detroit Trash