VC455

The Fisher Body tag on my VC shows date 01A, and January 1, 1970 was Thursday.

--Is the first week of January considered the week that January 1 falls on? Or the next week (first full week of January)?

--How much time would typically elapse between the Fisher Body date and car assembly date?

joe_padavano

The first week is the week Jan 1 falls on, so your car was built Fri or Sat.

hurst68olds

"01A" would represent the first 7 days of the month 1/1 to 1/7

Thursday 1/1/70 to Wednesday 1/7/70

I think it's been stated ..... the typical car took 4-shifts to build start-to-finish
would like to hear confirmation and/or thoughts on the above ^

joe_padavano

Wait. What? I have not heard it defined that way before.

hurst68olds

if it is (1970):
01A = 1/1 - 1/3
01B = 1/4 - 1/10
01C = 1/11 - 1/17
01D = 1/18 - 1/24
01E = 1/25 - 1/31

there would be lots of tags with "01E" a full Sunday 1/25 to Saturday 1/31 of available work (August, October, November, May & July would be similar) yet, how rare is it to see a "xxE" Fisher Body tag?

I don't have a lot of organized '70 Lansing tags, but only have 3 "E"s of 62 tags.

of my '67 Lansing database, I have 19 "E"s of 199

joe_padavano

This is the date code definition that I am familiar with.

hurst68olds

I don't know how it was done, I wish what seems to be a simple question had a simple known answer

if you start with a less than 7-day week
you end up with a 53 week year

I've never seen anything dated the 53rd week of a year

anyone have access to a '70 UAW calendar? what was their holiday/vacation schedule like?

the earliest "01A" 1970 Lansing Fisher Body tag I have info from is:
LAN 338214 BDY
LAN 342820 BDY is the latest "01A" I have

that's 4,606 bodies (minimum) a lot of work for the Friday & Saturday after New Year's Day

joe_padavano

The date codes aren't counting weeks of the year, as far as I know. If they were, it would have made more sense to simply number the weeks starting with "1". Besides, production wasn't synced to a calendar year and didn't last 52 weeks anyway.

I'm not disputing your point, but I've ever heard it defined this way before. I can see arguments for either way, and I have no proof one way or the other. I'm very curious now, however.

hurst68olds

as am I

sorry, the 53 week comment was an off-topic reference to using the first Monday or Friday to mark the "first" for counting production

hurst68olds

can the OP post additional details (BODY NUMBER, etc.) from the Fisher Body tag, is the VC from Lansing? are all '70 VC from Lansing?

Does it still have it's original door sticker? Can "WE" assume it is 1-70?

jensenracing77

And this method is still used today on all manufacturing I am involved in today. I am involved with 4 places that all use this style of production weeks.

edit, The first week would include a couple days of 69 in this case

hurst68olds

is week "A" always ending on Saturday?

& is Month "01" week "A" always the first Saturday of the calendar year?

hurst68olds

then, model year '70 (& '66, '68, '69, '71, '72) would not have a "12E"

the only model years with a 12E would be years that 12/31 falls on a Saturday (like '61 model year & '67 model year)

hurst68olds

&
01A is always 7 days?

&
all the rest of the months the first week can be as short as one day?

slantflat

I have a 70 Vista and the FB tag says 12D and the build date is January 5. The door placard says 01/70. This is a Lansing car.

VC455

Original door label shows 1-70.

Judging by how early the body number is for an 01A car, may I assume it was likely made January 02?

jensenracing77

I have not looked at each year but some years will have a couple days of the next year in them and other years will have a couple days of the year before in them. 2018 is an unusual year and the first week of 18 will start on January 1 (maybe December 31). 2018 will end on December 29 so that puts 30 and 31 in the first week of 2019

Charlie Jones

Did both of those tags have the same "style" number ?
I believe that that sequential number only applied to that particular "style" . Not to the entire production .

hurst68olds

where is the build date recorded? can you share more info: VIN & Lansing Fisher Body number?

the month/week on the Fisher Body tag is going to be the build week of the body & the month/year on the door sticker is going to be the month of final assembly (a December body w/January final assembly is a great data point!)

here's a screenshot of late-December / early-January VIN list I've been assembling - it's a very small sampling & the timeframe covers about 30,000 builds at Lansing ONLY

hurst68olds

the earliest "01A" 1970 Lansing Fisher Body tag I have info from is:
LAN 337682 BDY
LAN 342820 BDY is the latest "01A" I have

that's 5,138 bodies (minimum) for "01A" at Fisher Body Lansing

per jensenracing77's calendar dates, the body build week "01A" would be Sunday 12/28/69 thru Saturday 1/3/70 (minus whatever days were shutdown/holiday)

the final assembly at Lansing would follow, but it does appear to be earlier in the week VS. later (but the "12D" Vista above has a 1/5 date associated with it)

hurst68olds

how can the above ^ in BOLD happen?

Am I following correctly?

2016 (month 1 - week 1) 01A would be Sunday 12/27 thru Saturday 1/2
2017 (month 1 - week 1) 01A would be Sunday 1/1 thru Saturday 1/7 (identical calendar to 1967)
2018 (month 1 - week 1) 01A would be Sunday 12/31 thru Saturday 1/6
2019 (month 1 - week 1) 01A would be Sunday 12/30 thru Saturday 1/5

are you currently in "12E"?

hurst68olds

while that does appear to be true at some plants during some years, 1970 Lansing (non-Toronado) appears to use a sequential numbering system

VIN "sequential number" + 100000 = the perfect "on-schedule" Fisher Body number

jensenracing77

First week of 16 would start on 01-03-16. It matters where week 52 was the year before. When it comes down to it, Every month is like this, it is not just the end/beginning of the year. Any month with an E (or 5th week) will be to the end of that week and the next week will start that Sunday or Monday even if it is a couple days into the next month.

If it will open, this is the 2017 week list we went by.

Oldsfan

Just another thought to throw into the mix - holiday shut-down time.

As a 30 year employee in GM dealerships, I can remember a time when Mother GM all but shut down over the time period between Christmas and New Year's. They worked with skeleton crews in the Zone Offices. We couldn't contact anyone regarding warranty claims or car distribution. I would think that the assembly plants would have been closed as well.

So lets assume that the plants were closed on Thursday, Jan 1st and were shut down for a week before hand. Would it really have been cost effective for GM to fire up those plants for one day of production, then close for the weekend? Or would the have just remained closed until the following Monday.

How common was it at that time for the factory to run production on Saturdays?

Also, I saw reference above to data plate date codes and known vehicle build date codes. I will echo what the others have said. The date on the data plate is when the body was built. That body was then shipped over to the final assembly plant for, of all things, final assembly. The vehicle build date would either have been when the body arrived at final assembly, when chassis assembly began, or when the vehicle was ready to roll out the door.

hurst68olds

that's great - it shows a 52 (or 53) week accounting for a production schedule, but it also only allows a 5th week for the 3rd month of each quarter (13 weeks each quarter)

for the '67 model year, I have Lansing Fisher Body tags with 5th ("xxE") weeks for the following 6 months:
08E
09E
11E
12E
03E
05E
& I'd bet there are others

jensenracing77

I was not alive back then but I am willing to bet your addition to the spreadsheet is exactly right for 67. The manufacturing I am involved in is about 40 to 50 years behind today's methods. It is a great example of how thing ran back then. Our customers are in the very early stages of modernizing to the 1980's technology, lol. Very little automation and mostly manual labor. It is the "we are not building show cars" style of manufacturing.

VC455

Following that logic, the 01A assembly week might have started January 4, 1970.

I found documentation for that conclusion. About 10 years ago a friend parted out a 1970 Vista Cruiser. I kept some of the papers from the car, which I ran across when cleaning out files this week. In the papers was a rare Lansing Broadcast Card. This Broadcast Card was found in the friend's Vista Cruiser but was not from that car (his was a 2-seat model 4855 Porcelain White over Twilight Blue but the card was from a car that was a 3-seat model 4866 Porcelain White over Galleon Gold).

The Fisher body number, 337266, on the Broadcast Card is 416 before my body number. The assembly date on the Broadcast Card shows January 7. From the volume of cars assembled in Lansing every day, both of these cars were probably assembled either the same day or within a few days of each other.

Both my car and the Broadcast Card car are model 4866 (3-seat Vista Cruisers). My VIN is 237911; the VIN corresponding with the Broadcast Card is unknown.

1970cs

I would lean heavily on the same day or possible following. I had a chance to speak to my ex-father in law, we had the conversation of how many cars the main plant was cranking out back in the day he said around 65 per hour with no line stoppage. 2 to 3 shifts with 6 or 7 days a week production. He worked for Olds from 1968-2002.

Again, this was not Fisher, but they should have been running similar numbers to match final production at the main plant.

Pat