StanMac wrote:
So many beautiful “concept” cars never make or made it into production, which makes no sense to me. Those that were well received with oooohhhhss and aaaahhhhs by the public get so watered down in the production model their desirability gets tanked. While the Mustang was a big hit even with its watered down styling, it would have been even more of one in the original concept, IMO.
Stan
There's often a fine line between what is conceptual and what the carmaker can build. At Ford, part of the problem, as with all automakers, is the ability to get sheet metal from the concept to the stamping press. Sheet metal has a "memory", and you can only stress it so much during production. Even with multiple strikings along several presses, it's still difficult to achieve a design sometimes. And during the period before CAD/CAM, all of the dies were machined pretty much by "guess", not that micromatic tools weren't utilized. Before lasers came along, the best test of sheet metal finish, was the operator using a gloved hand to feel for any imperfections. Later on, when vehicles also got non-metal body parts such as hoods and deck lids, it became much easier to hold metal specs.
There was also the problem of body fixtures at the assembly plant. We used body bucks to hold sheet metal in position, and then an operator would make a number of welds attempting to hold a spec. If the spec was .5", the operator could hold "fairly" close to that tolerance, but there wasn't always a guaranteed hit. Until the robotic welders came along in the late 70's, "close" was what you got. We also had "blue bucks", which were the original specified body bucks, and sheet metal was periodically pulled off line and inserted in the blue buck to confirm specs. When we started using robotic welders, a lot of those problems went away.
Before design changes, pretty much all vehicles went through soldering processes. Even with the best available ventilation systems, you could still smell some lead solder fumes in the body shops. Then the bodies were sanded along those joints before going to the paint department.
There was also the barrier wall between the line operators and the process and production engineers. If the engineer believed the operator was in error, then it was the operator's fault. When our plant was assigned the Ford Ranger production, the old methods were tossed out, and we sent operators by the dozens to our pilot plant in Allen Park, Michigan to learn the best methods of production, and the operators' comments and suggestions were fully implemented in parts design and process. Brake and electrical lines were no longer rigidly affixed to the body and chassis. When line speeds were moved from 40 +/- jobs per hour, to 80 JPH, production had to be simplified.