History of the 1962 Chevy II

A little bit of Willow Run Assembly Plant history

— by Greg Roberts

In those days, the first two or three days of a brand-new model launch were pretty standard cars, with major option introductions staggered a few days apart; within a week or so, just about everything was in the schedule. In 1961 Chevrolet began assembling a new car line know as the Chevy II. This 1st-generation Chevy II/Nova series picked up an internal industry moniker of the "Fisher Falcon", as it was developed very quickly to compete with the Falcon as GM’s low-priced economy car; although it was a unitized body, it was yet another example of the content war between Fisher and Chevrolet. From the (reinforced) firewall back, it was all welded; from the firewall forward, it had a 3-piece Chevrolet "doghouse" (side panels and radiator support) that was held together with what seemed like hundreds of 5/16"-18 loose bolts and nuts, with the units sub-assembled one at a time in an off-line fixture.

That three-sided assembly was then bolted to the firewall with four huge bolts on each side at the bottom, and three more huge bolts on each side at the top. When the bodies came over from Fisher, a huge gage was used on the firewall that measured the fore-aft position of the four bolt-attaching areas, and the + or - deviation from spec was marked on the firewall. A similar gage was used on the completed "doghouse" unit that measured the position of its four attaching areas, and it was marked with its deviation numbers. When the "doghouse" (which at that point included the engine and front suspension) was mated to the body, the operators noted the numbers on the body and the corresponding numbers on the "doghouse" and selected the correct number of shims (i.e., a body with +1 and a "doghouse" with -4 required three shims) to be stuffed in between the top of the "doghouse" and the body before the six large upper attaching bolts were driven. When the Chevrolet hood and fenders were bolted on later, all hood-to-cowl and fender-to-door fit problems were invariably blamed on Fisher Body. See picture 2 below.

The "Towveyor" line is where the engine/chassis was married to the body, and the overhead chassis line that followed it - the Towveyor loop had 16 pairs of hydraulic lifts in it, and the overhead line was 24 cars long, with 82 people (except on Monday mornings). It ran 65 cars per hour, a 50-50 mix of Corvairs and Chevy II’s. The rear suspension was also joined to the body on this line. See picture 3 below.

Below is a shot of the end of the line where the wheels of the complete car first hit the ground. Corvairs were mixed with Chevy II’s. Note the build sheet taped to the front. Look at the third car.

Picture 5 below is a shot of a Chevy II after exiting the inspection area. You can see several single letter inspection stickers on the windshield. The small square inspection stickers are on the passenger side of the windshield just above the wiper blade.

The some of the inspection stickers the windshield stickers were "M" (Mechanical OK from the Final Line), "P" (Paint OK from the Final Line), "B" (Body Trim OK from the Final Line), and "RT" (Roll Test OK). Anyone know the others?

Do you have any pictures of the firewall or doghouse assembly line markings? How about any assembly line photos of any Nova or Chevy II? Do you have any assembly line documents?

Publicity Photos and Artwork

1962 Chevy II Nova 400 Convertible

These two images are courtesy of the GM Media Archives. Copyright 2004 GM Corp. Used with permission, GM Media Archive.

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