VINs per day

[ChallengerHK]

Something I've always wondered; how many VIN numbers would a plant see in a day?

Admittedly, there's a lot of variables to answer this. How many shifts are being run and how much demand per model would be big ones. But even a ballpark would be good. I recall seeing about 300-350 vehicles per shift when I was working in GM's Detroit-Hamtramck plant for a couple of months (which, coincidentally, is partially built on land where Dodge Main used to stand). Is that a good estimate for the early 70s as well?

[Alaskan_TA]

I wrote a short article about this a while back when someone asked a similar question, it is based on 1970 Hamtramck production;

http://www.hamtramck-historical.com/hammyCarsInADay.shtml


T/Ake care,
Barry

[ChallengerHK]

Thanks, Barry.

[tttaziz]

Barry, thought you might want this information from the 1971 Ward's Automotive Yearbook.

1970 model year production for Hamtramck:

Valiant       233,157
Dart            17,963
Barracuda    45,788
Challenger    67,126

Ty

[Jacksboys]

"343,000 cars divided by 256 days gives us an average of 1339.84 cars per day from this plant."

  That is a bunch of cars to produce in a day.

[Alaskan_TA]

Hey Ty,
That is odd because I have not seen any 1970 Darts from the Hamtramck plant? Maybe they meant Duster.

Deffinately a lot of cars a day, in later years it was even more than in 1970. Hamtramck had two assembly lines though, so that helped. 

Barry

[tttaziz]

Hi Barry,

I just grabbed those numbers late night from one chart.  Since you don't know of any Hamtramck 1970 Darts I did a little more checking.  Total 1970 Dart production was 191,986 but almost all Darts built for sale in US were built in Canada.  In review, I think the Ward's chart is wrong for Dart Hamtramck production.  The Valiant, Barracuda, and Challenger numbers all seem to confirm:

Hamtramck Valiant 233,157 plus LA Valiant 8,400 for total of 241,557 US

Hamtramck Barracuda 45,788 plus LA Barracuda 9,711 for total of 55,499 US

Hamtramck Challenger 67,126 plus LA Challenger 15,906 for a total of 83,032 US

These three would give a Hamtramck production total of 346,071, which is close to your high number recorded. Seem right to you?

Ty

[Alaskan_TA]

That sounds about right.

One of the things that may have lead to some of the Hamtramck / Dart confusion is that the 1970 Darts built at the Windsor Ontario plant were invoiced from the Hamtramck plant. Check this out;

[PlumCrazy]

"Exactly 191,986 Dodge Dart/Dart Custom/Dart Swinger
and Dart Swinger 340 passenger cars were built during model
year 1970.  In rounded-off totals, this included only 3,900
units built in the United States. The additional cars, some
188,100 in all, were manufactured, in Canada, for the U.S.
market.  Six-cylinder engines were installed in 69.7 percent of these cars and the rest were V-8s."

Dart Swinger 119,883
Dart Swinger 340 13,785
Dart Custom 4-door 23,779
Dart Custom 2-door hardtop 17,208

Wonder were the 3,900 U.S. cars were built?
 

[tttaziz]

Ward's shows 2,818 1970 Darts built at the Los Angeles plant. 

Barry, interesting point about the invoicing.  Wonder if it showed Hamtramck on the window sticker so that buyers thought they were buying a U.S. built car?

Ty

[Alaskan_TA]

I will look and see if I have any 1970 Dart window stickers..........

Edit;

No luck on the window sticker.

Barry