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John, thanks for your insightful input. I have made some changes to the charts. Check them out.

Originally Posted by John V.

Eric, that's quite an ambitious undertaking.

Couple things of note. To my knowledge, GM began to dismantle the separate Fisher Body Div. and integrate body assembly into the unified GM Assembly Div. starting in 1968.

An article Keith posted earlier in the thread does a pretty good job of outlining the transition.

On your chart however, I think there is a confusion.

In '64, Plants like Fremont were B-O-P Div. Assembly Plants. Each had an independent Fisher Body Plant associated with them.

You show "merged with GMAD in 1965" for these plants. I think this is incorrect. I believe that the article correctly states that the B-O-P Div. became the GM Assembly Div. in deference to the fact that these Plants were now assembling Chevy's in addition to B-O-P vehicles. But Fisher Body remained as a separate Div. under its own management structure.

One source for Fisher plant history that states that some of the BOP plants did start migrating to GMAD control as early as 1965. The change in FB id. on the data tags between 1964 and 1965 does indicate that something was changing at this time.

Then in '68, GM began the process of eliminating the separate Fisher Body Div. and integrating body assembly into the final assembly operation. This integration culminated with the demise of the Fisher Body Div., although it remained at some Plants well into the '70s IIRC.

Another stage in the elimination of FB ocurred in the 1970 to 1973 era when the FB id. codes changed again to match the one-letter code of their conjoined GMAD plant. This change apparently did not apply to the Olds, Pontiac and Buick home plants, which retained their three letter id. codes at least through 1974.

This makes for a bit of complication when it comes to identifying the Plant code for some of the Plants.

In '64, the Fremont B-O-P Plant was Plant Code F. It became Plant Code Z in '65, apparently to coincide with the formation of GMAD.

At least one source states that the Fremont plant started as code H in 1964, went to Z in '65. Since Buick was using the F code in 1964, I don't think that the same code would be assigned to Fremont for 1964.

Likewise, in '64 the Lansing, Mich Plant was Plant Code M.

But the Kansas City, Missouri was also Plant Code M in '64. It was a Chevy Plant. It became Plant Code K in '65, apparently to coincide with the formation of GMAD.

I can't explain this double use of the M code. It seems to me that this redundancy would cause great confusion in GM's bookkeeping.

The Kansas City, Kansas Plant was Plant Code K in '64. It became Plant Code X in '65, apparently to coincide with the formation of GMAD.

The Arlington B-O-P Plant was Plant Code A in '64. It became Plant Code R in '65, apparently to coincide with the formation of GMAD.

There are others that likewise changed Plant Codes in '65.

IIRC, Fremont I believe first began churning out Chevy and/or GMC trucks in late '63 as a built from scratch Plant, car production did not commence until Sept. '63 for the '64 Model Year.

Just a suggestion, but it may be more appropriate for the '65 changes to be identified on the same line as the GMAD Plant Code line in your chart, to clarify the two separate changes as the Corp. structure evolved.

Example:

GMAD Plant Code: R Arlington, TX 1953- , (became GMAD in 1965 MY, formerly B-O-P Div. Plant Code A in 1964 MY)
Fisher Body Plant Code: BT prior to integration with GMAD in 1968

You list BT & R for the Fisher Body Plant Code. Actually, I'm not sure what is correct here. Since the Plant was integrated, the single Plant Code R would make sense, but you may be going for what is indicated on the Data Plate as the Body No. prefix. I'm not sure what that code was in Arlington from '68 up. But I think BT is correct prior to '68.

My source indicates that Arlington used BT through the 1971, then changed to R for 1972.

Lordstown ceased '69 Firebird production in March '69.

Tooling was moved to Norwood, and starting in April, '69 Firebirds were added to the model mix at that Plant. So '69 Firebird production should be added to Norwood.

AFAIK, fullsize production of Chevy's was terminated at Lordstown at the end of '69.

The entire line was ripped out at that point in preparation for Vega production. The all new line for the Vega was installed. I believe only the Vega was produced at Lordstown after that.

I don't see the Cadillac Clark St. Plant listed. It may have been one of the last (or the last) GM assembly plant that had separate Fisher Body Div. built body assemblies. Body Assemblies arrived at Clark St. by truck from a nearby Fisher Body Plant by what I understand into at least the late '70s.

I can't locate information on the Clark St. plant. Was the Clark St. plant exclusively Fleetwood body production?

Again, great work! I hope my comments are helpful.

Thanks. With enough research, we'll get this sorted out, I hope.