Wyoming Ave plant

[bluefury361]

[QUOTE="saforwardlook, And you should definitely tour the Henry Ford Museum - a great experience![/QUOTE]

You need to add Greenfield village to the list also. Right next to The Henry Ford museum and part of the Ford foundation. In many ways more fascinating then the museum. I would allow 2 days for the museum and another day for the Village. Get there early.

 

[Bill Watson]

The "I" means the car is built to international specifications, not American or Canadian.

Not all cars exported were CKD units. Many were shipped complete, just as they rolled off the assembly line. The Wyoming plant was closed in 1980 and torn down in 1992.

For CKD units, what was shipped with the car many times had to do with import duties at the destination of the car. If the car was not painted a colour, they were usually painted white, to prevent rust developing on the body. Primer is actually porous and thus subject to rusting. The digit on the VIN for the Wyoming plant was "8". When the Car Line and Model digits wee replaced by letters, the Wyoming plant became "P".

Back in the early 1960's cars shipped to Europe had an abbreviated VIN attached to the car - Make, Model Year, Sequential Production Number. When the car was assembled a second tag was placed on the car which usually had the name of the company assembling the car along with a new serial number, the engine number and some other codes.

Have seen a couple of 1960 Australian assembled 1960 Darts with the short VIN plus the additional information attached to the firewall.

Bill

 

[Bill Watson]

Concerning those two photos of assembly plants, they were taken in 1980, in Detroit, while on vacation. The one picture with cars stopped at an intersection (rush hour) shows the Wyoming (Export) Plant on the left and the McGraw (Glass) Plant on the right. If you look closely you can see the overhead walkway between the two plants. The McGraw plant was built in 1937 and initially was a stamping plant for the DeSoto Assembly (Wyoming) plant .

The second photo is the west side of the Wyoming Plant. I pulled off the road and pointed the camera south, looking back at the intersection taken in the first photo. The Wyoming plant was built around 1912 by the Saxon Motor Co., a company started up by a gentleman named Hugh Chalmers and his associates. During WW I the plant built war materiel. After the war Saxon sales collapsed and GM bought the plant. Either GM assembled Buick cars there or they prepared Buicks for export until the Depression hit.

Chrysler purchased the plant in 1934, and in 1936 updated the plant to begin assembling DeSotos for the 1937 model year.

Somewhere I have an aerial photo of the Wyoming plant, taken in the early 1940's. Someone wrote on the back of the photo, "photo of auto assembly plant, DeSoto County, in Wyoming." Had things a little mixed up.

There was a third DeSoto plant, on West Warren Avenue, only five minutes away from the Wyoming/ McGraw plants . This plant was acquired in 1948 by Chrysler from Graham-Paige Motors. DeSoto bodies were built there from 1950 to 1958 and DeSoto hemi V8 engines 1952-1958. DeSoto production was moved to East Jefferson for 1959, and Imperials were built at the West Warren plant for model years 1959, 1960 and 1961.

 

[PeugFra]

Not all cars exported were CKD units. Many were shipped complete, just as they rolled off the assembly line. The Wyoming plant was closed in 1980 and torn down in 1992.
...
The digit on the VIN for the Wyoming plant was "8". When the Car Line and Model digits wee replaced by letters, the Wyoming plant became "P".

Thanks, Bill!

In that case my assumption that every export car was shipped as a CKD kit and, the other way around, that obtaining the production number for CKD kits gets you the total production number of export cars, is simply wrong.

Finding a C-body with the P plant code in the VIN will surely be something very rare!

And, for the years that Wyoming Ave has been producing C-body CKD kits, adding up the published C-body production numbers for the North American assemblies will not get you the "real" total production number, because Wyoming Ave is never mentioned.

Maybe those export cars from CKD kits were counted towards ChryCo's foreign production totals? Ward's 1974 lists production totals for Chrysler subsidiaries in Australia, England, France, Japan, Mexico and Spain (just grand totals, no break-down by make or car line).

 

[ceebuddy]

To the best of my Knowledge, no C-body sold in Europe after 1969 (or even earlier) was assembled in Europe from parts. They all came built to European specs (mainly, with a KM-speedo) right from the respective US plant.

 

[PeugFra]

To the best of my Knowledge, no C-body sold in Europe after 1969 (or even earlier) was assembled in Europe from parts.

It's true that Ward's 1974 only lists Exports production of 1973 Dart and Coronet in its section on Michigan. That will have been CKD kits.

 

[69CoronetRT]

Thanks, Bill!

In that case my assumption that every export car was shipped as a CKD kit and, the other way around, that obtaining the production number for CKD kits gets you the total production number of export cars, is simply wrong.

Not every car with International or Export designations left the US. There are numerous instances of cars ordered by servicemen when they were overseas that were actually picked up at local dealerships.

Given the way production numbers are sourced, one should always question the accuracy of the number reported.

1) From which report, and the date of the report, was the number derived? Don't discount the date of the report to meet third party publishing guidelines.
2) What is the parameter of the report? Built? Shipped? US sold? total?
3) Were the numbers reported as a percentage? Does the listing account for rounding errors?
4) Given the way some models/versions were actually 'options' in 1970, be especially aware of the numbers reported for that year. Does the number being reported included the 'option' or not?

Trust but verify.....