[Greg Reid]

I used to work with a guy that bought a new '78 Trans Am. He was upset when he finally noticed that one side of the hood scoop had a 'T/A 6.6' decal and the other side had a '400' decal.

[dataway]

I bet they did that more than people realize ... opposite sides of the car ... that can sometimes take years to notice.

[Keith Seymore]

My 74 Chevelle, built in Oshawa and owned since new, was hit in the left front fender in the factory.

We didn't know until the first time it was stripped for paint and there was bondo in it.

I worked for GM Truck in product design and vehicle assembly for 40 years. I probably built some of those trucks you guys are complaining about.

K

[mgarblik]

This would not apply to the OP's rocker trim........but some of the horrible fit and finish on 70's cars was "built in" at the dealership. Case in point, 2nd generation Trans Ams. They came from the dealer with what we called a "Trans AM kit" in the trunk. The front and rear spoilers, air dams, and a bunch of other Trans Am trinkets came in the trunk. The normal flat rate for dealer prep was 1 hour. If you did everything properly, you could do it in 1 hour. The Trans AM's paid 2 hours and it was a real push to hang all the plastic, fit it properly, and get the rest of the dealer prep done in 2 hours. So the work was often done poorly and very fast. My dealership did all the dealer prep on Saturdays and it was optional to make some extra money. Like everything in life, some technicians did a careful and thoughtful job putting these cars together. Some did 4-5 Trans Ams in a 4 hour period, just slapping them together with horrible gaping, fit and finish. This was in the time period where we had a new Trans AM 301 turbo delivered to the dealership with 7 pistons in the engine! That's a story for another day.

[400 4spd.]

During the mid to late 70's I worked at Nick Allen Motors, a Buick and Opel dealership. I've mentioned on here in the past that the V-6 powered cars were always delivered on the bottom of the transporter trailers. Delivery drivers said they didn't have the power to climb the ramps to the upper level, so V-8 cars were always on top.
Working in the body shop, a flaw that I picked up on was a slight vertical dent in the quarter panels of all '74-'76 Electras. This was in the crown of the panel a foot or so forward of the rear bumper, not far from the Electra 225 emblem. Those panels were so heavy that I think it was a result of either manufacturing or storage. The replacement panels had the same flaw, and I can remember only one customer complaining about it.
Another flaw was poor paint coverage along the lower body on the full sized cars. More than 1 sharp owner came back to have that corrected at this dealership.
I also remember the very first car to hit the lot with a sticker price above 10K. It was a blue 2 door 1976 Electra Limited with an electric moon roof.

Here is a similar looking car.

[CraigGT37]

When i worked at a GMC dealer, we got in one of the first Sonoma 4door trucks. I was the lucky one to have to do the prep. I opened the door to get inside and immediatly called the service manager over. The interior had been on fire! The door panels, carpet and seats melted, dash and headliner covered in soot. When i put it on a lift, we figured out what happened. The brackets for the seat belts were mig welded to the floor. Apperently they forgot to spot weld them to the floor during assembly and went back after the truck was fully assembled and welded them in. The district manager had to look at it and took pictures, it sat for several weeks til we could get the parts to fix it.

[Ragtop Man]

Body could have been welded up out of square; frame parallelogrammed in over the last 50 years... trim line could have drilled holes for the retainers on rocker trim wrong, so many places for an error to appear.

But you have a one family GTO, and that is cool as hell.

[OG68]

Lot of memories in that car. I had just turned 16 when they bought it.