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Skunk Works

Forum: C3 General Discussion

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Skunk Works

Posted: 3/6/08 8:18amMessage 1 of 9
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corvette440hp
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Doe's anyone know much about GM's or Chevrolet's "Skunk Works"? Where is it? Evidently some highly sophisticated machinery was produced "under cover" there.

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Skunk Works

Posted: 3/6/08 8:46amMessage 2 of 9
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All I could find so far was that it was located in Atlanta, GA and was the Southern Engineering Development Company for Chevrolet. That was in the '50s and '60s. Don't know if it's still there.
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Skunk Works

Posted: 3/6/08 10:23amMessage 3 of 9
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6880Mike
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I think it's housed in the Tech Center at Warren, Michigan, but it's one of those things GM usually doesn't mention much about in public.
 
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Skunk Works

Posted: 3/6/08 11:01amMessage 4 of 9
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Adams' Apple
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The term "Skunk Werks" was coined, I believe, by John Cafaro, while designing the C5. The cars were built/designed sorta on the sly, since GM was bleeding so bad at the time. They had to hide a lot of the development costs, etc.
The "Werks" was, and prolly still is in the tech center. It is NOT an office GM term for anything...just a term used by some of the "insiders" when working on "secret" projects that they don't want every Tom Dick and Harry to find out about.
Thass my story, an I'm stickin to it...

The term is also used to describe the south end of a north-bound skunk...
Adams' Apple2008-03-06 11:01:44

Joel Adams
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Skunk Works

Posted: 3/6/08 11:20amMessage 5 of 9
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The south bound end of a skunk heading north is a real "gas"..........I like that! I found out that Lockheed Martin owns the name. I guess that things kind got done without all the brass getting their drawers all bunched up. What they (GM) didn't know, (what was going on at the "WERKS") didn't get them in trouble. That has to be cool, working under the radar! This is interesting. corvette440hp2008-03-06 11:26:05

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Skunk Works

Posted: 3/6/08 12:29pmMessage 6 of 9
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MikeMc71
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It is mentioned a lot in the book "All Corvettes are Red", and Joel is pretty close to the mark. GM didn't want to fund C5 development, so the money was "acquired" from Chevrolet in the beginning to pay the engineering and development staff.

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Skunk Works

Posted: 3/6/08 6:26pmMessage 7 of 9
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dwright
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Not sure where GM's is located, but here is a little history of the term.
 

Skunk Works is used in engineering and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects. This term was made popular by a division of the same name within the Lockheed Martin corporation, because of their several successes at managing time-sensitive, complex projects. The term is also used analogously in other fields, especially business, to describe any self-contained, semi-autonomous work-group or committee that directly manages its own projects.

 
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Skunk Works

Posted: 3/6/08 8:07pmMessage 8 of 9
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Cafaro actually spelled his version of the term "Skunk Werks".
I think that is also what he is calling his personal design business.
I remember now hearing the term being used by Lockheed ...but I think as far as the GM usage, it was used to describe the C5 team.

Joel Adams
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Skunk Works

Posted: 3/7/08 6:42amMessage 9 of 9
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[QUOTE=dwright]...Lockheed Martin...[/QUOTE]
 
Correct; the term originated at Lockheed Martin when they began  developing aircraft for the CIA.  Loosely translated it means super secret stuff.  These days it's a generic term, although Lockheed now openly admits they have a secret operations section and even have a Skunk Works logo.
 
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