Hey all.
Not trying to beat a dead horse here. I know this topic has been discussed ad nauseam but I want to get your thoughts. Maybe get some questions answered or clarify information.
I think most enthusiast believe that the 1978 Corvette Pace Car’s production started on Saturday 18 March because that is when the first cars rolled of the line.However; I read recently that corvette production took 22 hours per car, start to finish. Since GM worked two 8-hour shifts a day back then on weekdays and one 8-hour shift on Saturdays that would mean it took two and three fourths shifts to complete a car. And that would put actual production starting on Friday 17 March, first shift not Saturday.
I’ve also read that GM worked either every other Saturday or every Saturday per month except one during production “to keep up with demand”. That one shift was an 8-hour shift. Anyone know anything different? So far I can only see where Corvettes were produced on two out of seven Saturdays during the production run.
Does anyone know if GM worked on 24 March, Good Friday? Again from what I’ve seen GM assembly plants including the St Louis Corvette plant, did not typically observe Good Friday as a paid holiday under the UAW contract at the time. So to me that means they worked however; in tracking production codes, I have yet to find any cars build that day.
Lastly, each car only received their Data Tag once it was totally completed. If there were deficiencies that needed to be corrected, the car went to a repair line and then once repaired; it got its tag for that day. This is why some build dates are out of sequence.
Why does this matter? Because depending on the number of Saturdays they worked (I can document two 18 March and 1 April) and Good Friday, the production run was between 35 and 40 days. This will help us figure an average number of cars produced per day. Not exact, but it helps narrow the information down to how many actual cars per day.
Jeff
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