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I consider myself still as a newbie, so i'm posting my question here: Why does the door sill plate on my 73 Olds 98 coupe (like so many (or every?) other GM cars) say "body by fisher"?ŽAs far as I understood, fisher was some kind of coach builder to support the GM production....
General Motors purchased controlling interest in Fisher Body Corporation in 1919. In 1926, Fisher Body was fully integrated into GM and served as the body-building unit of GM until Fisher Body was phased out and its functions incorporated into the various divisions of GM in the 1980s. "Body by Fisher" on the sill plate of a GM car is about as iconic a symbol as the Ford blue oval or the Chevy bowtie.
I consider myself still as a newbie, so i'm posting my question here: Why does the door sill plate on my 73 Olds 98 coupe (like so many (or every?) other GM cars) say "body by fisher"?ŽAs far as I understood, fisher was some kind of coach builder to support the GM production....
Just curious
Christian
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Fisher was a coach builder. Back when automobiles were a fairly new thing it was the usual practice to have everything but the body produced by the maker. There were specialty coach building shops that adapted to the automobile and built bodies. Remember a lot of the body of an old automobile was wood or was supported by wood so building car bodies was a fairly straightforward transition for coach builders like Fisher. Chevrolet did this up through 1936. Eventually the coach/body builders were taken over and integrated into the whole car build in one plant.
It was very common in Europe to have custom coach builders do the bodies on expensive cars. In the US Dutch Darrin was a custom body builder and built specialty bodies for Packards and even for a few Kaisers. In the 1930s Hollywood celebrities sometimes had their car bodies custom built just for them.
But I digress. The Body by Fisher tag was meant as a mark of prestige to signify the automaker used the very best coach builder to furnish their bodies. When GM and Fisher were synonymous it no longer mattered as much. By the lalte 90s the tag was dropped entirely by GM.
For further detail see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_Body
Jerry
Thank you for your quick replies! Am I right to say, that in the post war era Fisher hardly built any bodies for GM anymore, but the Fisher plate with the old coach on it remained as some kind of prestigious tag or sign?
Did you read the link I posted from Wiki? I'd stick with that information. Even though Wiki isn't the best source in the world it beats the heck out of my 70 plus years of memory and fascination with cars.
Jerry
General Motors was organized as a group of semi-autonomous companies, including the six Divisions (Cheb., Ponch., Olds, Buick, Cad., and GMC), Fisher Body, and suppliers, such as AC and Delco.
Kind of like Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche.
Am I right to say, that in the post war era Fisher hardly built any bodies for GM anymore, but the Fisher plate with the old coach on it remained as some kind of prestigious tag or sign?
Completely incorrect.
Fisher built bodies for GM cars from 1919 until the 1980s. There was never any time where GM put a "body by Fisher" tag on the car as simply a tribute to Fisher Body. Your '73 Oldsmobile has a "Body by Fisher" tag on the sillplates because....get ready for it....your car's body was built by Fisher.
More correctly, by Fisher Body Division of General Motors. No different than Hydramatic transmission division, or AC, or Delco, or Harrison (radiators), or Muncie, or Saginaw, or Rochester, etc, etc...
OK....but mine was obviously built by the Linden plant in New Jersey. Wasn't Fisher located in Detroit?
Fisher Body plant codes used on 1960 cars (which indicate the locations of Fisher Body plants at that time):
PO, P ... Pontiac, Michigan
BA ...... Doraville, Georgia
BL ...... Linden, New Jersey
BC ...... South Gate, California
BK ...... Kansas City, Kansas
LA, L ... Lansing, Michigan
BW ..... Wilmington, Delaware
BF ...... Framingham, Mass
BT ...... Arlington, Texas
EP, CL .. Euclid, Ohio
OK....but mine was obviously built by the Linden plant in New Jersey. Wasn't Fisher located in Detroit?
And in other cities as noted. But even if there was only one Fisher Body plant, there was such a thing called railroads on which bodies could have been loaded and sent where needed around the country.
For some reason, you seem bound and determined to prove that your car's body was not made by Fisher.
It was.
It's time now to move on to something else. What other aspects of your car puzzle you?
Reading this and seeing pictures may help clearing up some things for monza 86.
I doubt it. Way back in post #3, 47 Convertible posted a link to a Wikipedia entry that explains the history of Fisher Body clearly and in detail. The OP apparently chose not to read it. Giving him more links to other articles is just more for him to ignore.
Darn, I wish I could find that map of the GM Framingham Plant that showed the Fisher Body building within the Plant. And pictures of the Fisher Body employees.
I read the Wikepedia entry long before I posted this question. Maybe I'm too dumb or my coprehension of the english language is too bad so I didn't get it.....anyway thank you all for your help and quick replies.
