VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 body styles at assembly

what or who decides at the assembly plants how many cars will be convertables, special deluxes, sedans, coupes and such.
were they pre orders or planned builds?
i am asking for the 1940's. but i wonder too about the other years.

move this post if in the wrong forum.

Orders from dealers basically determine what is built and when. There would be a group of planners to assign the orders to a particular plant. Their decisions are based on plant orders compared to capacity and distance from ordering dealer.

thanks chipper
you have been very helpful.
i've always wonder why the body styles weren't the same count.

Actually it is just the opposite. The "factory" decides the amount of each body style. If they make a wrong guess as to what will be popular they
"make" the dealer take some of the undisreable models along with the styles that are in high demand.
A good example was in 1949 and 1950. Chevrolet thought the Fleetline would be a big seller. It turned out there was a much higher demand for the Styleline. The dealers were forced to take Fleetlines if he wanted a good supply of Stylelines.
Prior to the late 1950's very few cars were special ordered by the customer. The dealer ordered what he thought he could sell and hopped the factory could supply them,
The same thing exists today. If the dealer takes some of the less diresable models he can get more of the "hot" sellers.

I think both Gene's and Chipper's responses both have merit. May I elaborate some?

After reading what they said, I nonetheless, I think maybe owing to the factory experience from 1911 or so on for a few years, they built what they thought they could best sell any given year. I even bought a Chevette (sp). Once. Gas crunch. Need I say more?

It was and is somewhat of a gamble when introducing new styles, as Gene and Chipper pointed out, but over time that and the dealer inventory of what was left over unsold from one production year to the next pretty much dictated what they built. Then and now.

And for popular models what a dealer could get. The dealer in Lake View SC told me years ago that he was allotted one (1) Corvette per year. It was a small dealership. He told me that each year it was sold even before he got it.

Given the above and what Gene and Chipper said, I think those factors helped the factory estimate what they should produce any given production each year.

The only puzzlement come in when one wonders why in the world did they produce so many for 1937 and 1938. Who would want one of those... er,... beauties? You can chalk the sells of those two up to marque loyalty and salesmanship. (Juuussstttt kidding)

Now for the 1941 models they couldn't produce enough. Those eye appealing works of art sold like hot cakes. Did too!

Interesting question.

Charlie

When was color choice available? I remember my dad's 54' Chevy was black. No choices on color. When he bought a 57'chevy wagon, they let him have the red and white model. It took the dealer a couple of weeks to locate that color in the surrounding area. But he did get the color choice that he wanted. It was the first automatic transmission that he owned.

There were choices on colors back as far as the 1929...and even before that.

That is a subject that can be debatable. Yes there were two or more different colors available on some models before 1929. An example is the '25 Touring and Roadster. "First Color Combination" - Cobalt Blue "Second Color Combination" - Buckingham Gray. Now the debate. Were both being produced at a given factory at the same time? Or was one supplanted by the other? And were all factories coordinated so the change was approximately the same time? Did more than one factory supply a given dealer? Depending on the answers to those questions there may have been a color choice for a dealer. Depending on receipt of cars from the factory and sales by a dealer a customer could have a choice between two colors on a given model or body style as early as 1925. Have I sufficiently whipped that horse?