Never heard of it but it's a facinating story!
Here is some more old pictures from back in the day!
Chrysler assembly line workers!
- Thread starter 65dartcharger
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Never heard of it but it's a facinating story!
Here is some more old pictures from back in the day!
Jarlaxle
Well-Known Member
If anyone knows the dude who went by "Big Jim" working on the line building A-bodies in 76, I'd love to know why the heck he signed the trunk of my friend's Feather Duster. 
(Grease-penciled on the bottom of the decklid is, "BIG JIM.")
(Grease-penciled on the bottom of the decklid is, "BIG JIM.")
If anyone knows the dude who went by "Big Jim" working on the line building A-bodies in 76, I'd love to know why the heck he signed the trunk of my friend's Feather Duster.
That would be so cool to unite them!
famous bob
mopar misfit
got a distant cousin, lives here in tulsa, that was a test driver (beater) for chrysler back when he was a very young man in michigan. he used to beat on the new hemi for 8 hours a day. he said they kinda frowned on him and his cohorts, because they wore a set of rear tires out every 8 hr. shift.
wouldn`t that be a kick in the ***!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!bob:tongue5:
X2 Bob!
Rocky_JS
'cuda
The 7mm engine from the air cleaner looks like a 67 GTX 440 engine. Very neat thread.
itate
Where is that wrench I just had in my hand?
A couple A-body pics I found a while back,
More pictures from Keith favorite model, 57-59 Fury! They don't get any better than this! Second picture from assembly line in Antwerp, Belgium.
The last picture seems to be the line for Desoto!
The last picture seems to be the line for Desoto!
Was at a cruise in a few years ago in Kokomo Indiana in
my 1988 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z. A guy approached me
asking about my Daytona. Said he worked at the St. Louis
plant.
Told him the car was built on Wednesday Feb. 10, 1988 at 05:58 p.m.
He said he was building Daytona's during that time on
2nd shift. He said he probably turned some wrenches
on my Daytona. It was great to talk to him.
Glad I got one built on Wednesday
Note:
My car was shipped to the Detroit Marshalling Center on Lynch Road
to be used in the Company Car Program.
my 1988 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z. A guy approached me
asking about my Daytona. Said he worked at the St. Louis
plant.
Told him the car was built on Wednesday Feb. 10, 1988 at 05:58 p.m.
He said he was building Daytona's during that time on
2nd shift. He said he probably turned some wrenches
on my Daytona. It was great to talk to him.
Glad I got one built on Wednesday
Note:
My car was shipped to the Detroit Marshalling Center on Lynch Road
to be used in the Company Car Program.
71Scamper
Mopar runs thru my veins!
Well I can't say any of my family members worked for Chrysler but I had a great uncle (long passed away) that supposedly worked for The Tucker Car Company. Obviously that didn't last for long, but he then went to work at some automotive related plant in Indiana.
I'm going to see if I can hunt down any pictures of him while he was at work now. Wouldn't it be something to find some pictures of him with Tuckers in the back ground?
I'm going to see if I can hunt down any pictures of him while he was at work now. Wouldn't it be something to find some pictures of him with Tuckers in the back ground?
Great thread with great pictures! For what's it worth I had a low mileage 70 Coronet 440 two door post "little old lady car" that I was cloning into a Super Bee. Anyway the car was never apart before I got it. When I was taking the rear panels out they still had the clear plastic in place behind them. So I pulled the plastic out for inspection / cleaning... I found what looked like a ball of aluminum foil or an old cheeseburger wrapper tucked in there! My best guess is that one of the assembly line workers must have just finished lunch or a snack then crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it in there before installing the panel over it.
jonblkmtn
Member
My dad didn't work at an assembly line. However, he did work at the Chrysler parts depot in Los Angeles, moved with them to Fullerton (i think) then to Ontario. He retired a few years back with 33 years of service. I have always owned Mopar's except that time when I sold my Dodge truck and bought a Prius, save $75 a week in gas!! Truth be told I save my 63 valiant for my weekends!!
Lynchroad 1966. Does anyone have pictures from the 60ies from the Los Angeles plant?
66Dvert
Working on my custom car parts again!
I don't know about a theft ring but there were a LOT of Hilo drivers getting extra money by taking a pallet of engines and lifting them over the fence and Dumping them into a dump truck bed when I was working there. (Trenton engine plant)in 1970-73. that was either 5 engines or 4 depending on the racks or how they were loaded. and yeah some of them were hemi's but most was 440's since they sold better according to the hilo drivers.
you would not believe what and how they got stuff out of there. one guy got caught because his thermos was rattling. they found out that he had been taking a set of plugs and a coil(in the thermos) along with a full set of wires taped around his stomach home EVERY day he worked, the cops retrieved over 1000 coils and as many sets of plugs and wire sets from the guys basement. he never sold any of them just put them in his basement."weird". Starters and alternators just got pitched over fences to another worker and put in the cars. At the glass plant I worked at after that a foreman got caught taping a windshield to the original windshield in his vehicles and covering the edges with black tape to hide it from the security guards. He drove right to the body shop about 2 blocks away and peeled the tape off and sold it too the manager of the shop. he made a quick 80 bucks every day! until the bodyshop owner tried to do a warranty claim on a replacement windshield (no one could find records that it was ever sold). another engineer would order stuff in and have it sent to his shop and ma Chrysler didn't catch on for about 8 years, even then he just got fired and never got charged for theft.
of course we had our share of bank robbers too! one plant manager in Detroit's McGraw Glass plant would borrow a co workers car and rob the bank about 3 miles away. (robbed the darn thing 4 times before he was caught too!) a couple of engineers and hilo drivers did the same thing but the idiots used their own cars DUH!. My "fav" was the 45 waving "Fro topped female " line worker that would go out at lunch and rob a bank then come back to work after getting "lunch" of course and never in her car. she waved the gun up on high. up over her head to make sure you saw it and pointed it down to the person. dang if she'd have pulled the trigger it would have broken her wrist. My supervisor at the time recognized her from the security footage on TV and turned her in, it was AWESOME in a keystone cops kinda way! About 20 fed's showed up and had to be escorted(the idiots couldn't function in a working plant making glass, first one in the plant slipped and darn near gutted himself on raw glass cullet,the armor they were wearing too didn't even slow down the raw glass cuts!) to the area she worked at to arrest her.
I got to see that first hand and laughed me A$$ off at the comedy.
it was a wild time. people did some stupid stuff and got away with it for a LOOOONG time. but they always got caught.
67redcudavert
Well-Known Member
In 70-71 I knew some people that worked at the Chrysler parts warehouse in Northlake, IL. From the sound of things there was a lot of pilfering going on there. There was also a high employee turnover rate, one of the guys I knew worked there 9 months and was number two on the seniority list. He moved into the shipping dept. and started sending stuff out of there by UPS. A bare hemi head weighs 69 lb. and UPS had a 75 lb. limit, he mailed out quite a few to people he knew.
As mentioned above, the forklift drivers were in on things. He would arrange with them to deliver certain part number items to the loading dock at a certain time and load them on a certain truck. The items were hemi shortblocks. He was selling them for $500 each.
Someone else I knew that worked there worked the night shift. He said that most of the night shift people spent most of their time looking up part numbers for desirable stuff, figuring out where it was and stealing it.
The first guy got caught eventually. There was a special order of two large batteries and they both got stolen. The plant manager was hopping mad about it. The guy selling the hemi stuff was building a hemi Dart racecar and wanted one of these batteries for it. He took one of them and put it in his Corvette on the floor on the passenger side of the car. The plant manager happened to walk by his car in the parking lot and saw it. So he got fired, but not prosecuted. Heard a lot of stories about stuff walking out of that place.
As mentioned above, the forklift drivers were in on things. He would arrange with them to deliver certain part number items to the loading dock at a certain time and load them on a certain truck. The items were hemi shortblocks. He was selling them for $500 each.
Someone else I knew that worked there worked the night shift. He said that most of the night shift people spent most of their time looking up part numbers for desirable stuff, figuring out where it was and stealing it.
The first guy got caught eventually. There was a special order of two large batteries and they both got stolen. The plant manager was hopping mad about it. The guy selling the hemi stuff was building a hemi Dart racecar and wanted one of these batteries for it. He took one of them and put it in his Corvette on the floor on the passenger side of the car. The plant manager happened to walk by his car in the parking lot and saw it. So he got fired, but not prosecuted. Heard a lot of stories about stuff walking out of that place.
SpikeWills69
Live Free or Die
Sounds interesting and that might be worth a thread all its' own.
Great stuff here, thanks for posting.
A68DART360
Well-Known Member
66340SEDAN
FABO Member #3649
:glasses7:
66340SEDAN
FABO Member #3649
8)
Rocky_JS
'cuda
some I found that I do not think were posted.
66340SEDAN
FABO Member #3649
The very first new 1968 Charger.....notice the 67 Charger wheel covers on it? :glasses7:
66340SEDAN
FABO Member #3649
:happy1:
Actually I think it looks great with those wheel covers!
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