Video of 1936 Chevrolet assembly plant, from foundry to finish

My college buddy Bruce Robinson, the only one of that gang that stayed an auto engineer, sent along this great video of a 1936 Chevrolet being made. Actually Bruce sent this shorter Tangerine Dream music version. I found the source vid and then sent that along to a few friends. The Chevy plant they film in the video was in Flint Michigan, the same town where I went to collage at GMI/Kettering University.

My other GMI buddy, Russ Grosse, really enjoyed the video since his family has a deep personal connection. Russ wrote me

• This film was made in 1936 and shows the Chevrolet Flint Manufacturing plant.  My grandfather Erich Grosse was a foreman in the stamping plant tool and die room when this film was made.  I still have many of his tools and even his personnel records from that time. Although I didn’t see him in the film, it does show die makers working on forging dies.  At 21:52 the film shows a couple minutes of body sheet metal stamping.  Erich would have worked on the dies shown in the film. He must have at least known many of the people in this movie.  The film was made just before the famous sit-down strike.  Note the almost complete lack of what would today be considered essential safety equipment and practices.  Hearing protection does not appear to be used at all, and eye protection is minimal.   Lots of men wearing neckties and other loose clothing around lathes and other rotating machinery.  There don’t appear to be any guards or interlocks to keep workers from being squashed in forging and stamping presses. In any case, an interesting window to a piece of our shared family history.  Hopefully a special treat for the other engineers in the family.

I too noticed the lack of safety equipment, and also how physical the work was. When I was an engineer at GMC Truck and Coach in Pontiac, the UAW (United Auto Workers) had a contract provision that no worker would have to lift more than 35 pounds. The goal was to make all the jobs in the plant gender-neutral. That is one disturbing thing about this film, the complete lack of women and people of color in the plant. At least I couldn’t see any. That was getting better in the 1970s when I was at GMC, but the safely was still a little sketchy. Every year a guy or gal would loose a hand in a press or a foot in a conveyer. The big tragedy was when a sweet young girl lost control of her bicycle inside the plant and got killed. Workers had bikes to get parts and broadcast sheets to their destination fast. She went under an Astro 95 cab-over heavy-duty truck that was being driven off the assembly line. The drivers had to fold the mirrors back since they were too wide to drive out the door of the plant. So he never saw the girl go under the rear tires. That was a sad day, the toughest guys in the plant were pretty torn up, she was a popular gal and everybody loved her.

One of my first work assignments was in the safety department. The occupants saw me, the 18-year-old co-op student roll in, and promptly told me to answer the phones and all split to go screw off. For entertainment they smirked and told me to look at the pictures in the file cabinet. That was where the gruesome accidents photos were. I still remember the picture of a thumb hanging from a spindle with the tendons wound up around the chuck. They explained that was why you are never supposed to wear gloves around rotating machinery. The guy was trying to stop the spindle quick so he could do a tool change. But since it was spinning he did not see the square-head setscrews in the side of the chuck holding it to the shaft. With no gloves, it would have been lacerations and blood, but not much more. With gloves on, the screws dug into the fabric and ripped his thumb off. That was in the days before doctors could sew your digits back on. Think about that as you go to use your power tools this weekend. Be careful.