pre production Cuda

[JS27N0B]

I remember the discussion we had wondering why a 74 car would have all the tooling marks on it seeing as it was the last year of production.
We never did get an answer.

[73Chally]

I might have that issue of MM, but unfortunately I am on the road.  If it's not posted before I get back, I will try to track it down.

[DMZ73]

Many times we will take a car and retrofit facelifts to an existing production model. That is why you could end up with a 70 body and 74 bumpers.

I did not see this article, but it sure brings up a lot of questions.

The tooling grid marks are for allignment in design grid position. It is not uncommon to scribe lines every 100mm and take a position point. This was for allignment and for checking build tolerance. It also helped the engineering team find where discrepancies are from the data to the real thing are- (The data was then drawings, now Catia at Chrysler)
We call these S1s/S2s. They signify a pre-production model at a feasibility "gate"

How this car could have survived is beyond me.
The process is similiar to what we do today. We put the car on a plate and we have a grid mark that we verify as gospel, then we retrofit new parts.


Dan

[NoMope Greg]

Here' the response I got from Randy Bolig to my request for a .pdf file or link:

Greg, Sorry, but without knowing which issue it was in, it's almost impossible to track down a pdf.

73Chally, if you can dig it up and fill in the blanks, that would be appreciated.

[Topcat]

I brought this car up because I think it needs to be in a museum like the Hot Rod one in L.A. or the WPC in MI.
Whats your thoughts? Agree or disagree?

[DMZ73]

I could agree, it should be in a museum, especially Walter P. Chrysler Museum if in fact this car is  a "verification model"

Without knowing the history on the car I can not say for sure.

I would love to hear the details.

Dan

[73Chally]

Well, I finally found it  It was in the Rare Finds section of the Dec 2006 issue of Mopar Muscle.  It was originally sold in 1974, and was initially intended to be built as a race car for D ick Landy.  Please pardon the quality of the pictures, but hopefully they are legible.

[Topcat]

what a cool article.  I bet Barry would like a pdf of that.

[NoMope Greg]

It isn't a '74, it's a '70, and the car was in Mopar Muscle.  Afraid I don't remember which issue, but as TC said, it was 2-3 years ago.  IIRC, the car was put together with pre-production body parts and the lines are to assist the engineers to make sure that the body panels coming out of the forms would line up correctly on the car before allowing the machinery to go into full production.  Every mass-produced vehicle has at least one model like this, but they're usually crushed.  I don't remember the circumstances that led to this one surviving.

Guess I didn't remember correctly about the year.   

Thanks, 73Chally for looking that up.

[73Chally]

I have a scanned copy in .pdf format, but it is just over 1 MB in size.  If anyone would like me to email a copy just let me know by PM or email.

David