1959 Plymouth Maywood Assembly Line
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- Опубликовано: 24 ноя 2024
- 1959 Plymouth Maywood Assembly Line. Various portions of the 1959 Plymouth assembly line are highlighted. An amazing view of the insides of the 1950's automotive industry. From our old film, with music added for watchability.
And everything was made right here in the United States. Amazing.
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I like the guard at the end checking for stolen parts! One piece at a time - Johnny Cash
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A 1959 Plymouth Savoy was my first car. My big brother and a friend were at a Kansas City Athletics baseball game in 1966. It was automotive night and his friend won the second place car which ended up being my first car
I toured Pontiac Motor Division in 1968. I was 11, and I remember a few things about that place. Noisy and dirty. I got to see Iconic cars being built. LeMans, GTO's Bonnevilles, it was wild and a nice tour. I never forget it.
I'm jealous! The '68 GTO is my all time favorite car. My dad had a new '68 LeMans that he bought new in OK, $3000 when he separated from the USAF after 14 years. I'm close to your age as I turned 10 in '68.
Very cool!
I also toured a plant at aged 10 where they were building Pontiacs in 1968. It was the Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas City, Kansas.
These cars were virtually hand made. No computers. What craftsmanship. All those people involved. Amazing.
and you wonder why robots are taking over the industry today.
Glad you enjoyed the video. Thanks!
It is the Chrysler Los Angeles (Maywood) Assembly that closed in 1971. There was an actual Ford Maywood Assembly that was in operation for a decade.
From a time when the men were Men and the women were happy to have them!
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Back in the day before robotics. When people worked a hard honest living.🏆🇺🇸
It's still a hard job today, just not as dangerous. Thanks for watching, @1957kwick!
@@dstragand not for what they’re being paid.
@@dstragand People today in the automotive industry barely have to lift a finger. In this video it showed them lifting doors, probably all day long. Assemblers today have it so easy.
And made a good product
I'm amazed at the amount of hand labor involved. Can't believe they were actually using gas torches and brazing parts of body together. How ancient!
Exactly you dont see that anymore.
Truly a team effort. Glad you enjoyed it.
Artisans at work
Hand leaded seams too. craftsmen.
Did the ends of BMW E46 quarters by Hand in the late 90s
The ligistics involved in procurement, shipping and assembly here are absolutely staggering.
And mostly done on paper instead of computers, too. Thanks for watching!
That is very , very cool! You wonder how they kept track of everything in those days without all the computers we have now! Even heavy equipment is tagged and tracked now to know it's location. There is so much inventory there.
Believe it or not, they did have some very basic computers controlling the builds & inventory.
Believe it or not people actually knew how to use paperwork at one time and actually read and do math not like today. They relied completely on a computer. I remember when everything was done with paper and it was much better because you know what the computer generates and uses more paperthan we did back in the day when we only used paper
So many piles of parts. No bins look at how they install a windshield just a gasket and that windshield was big
My younger brother worked at Chrysler Los Angeles (Maywood) Assembly in the 50's.
Very cool! I imagine it would be a proud moment any time one of the ones he built rolled by.
Thanks for posting. Nice to see the way they use to do it along with all the workers back in the day.
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@dstragand We had many Dodge / Plymouth produces throughout the 1960s till now. Still always seem to have a Dodge kicking around. Never had any 1950s or older though. Last Dodge car I had was a 2010 Charger in Tor red.
Thanks for this one! Really cool to see the assembly process and all of the subcontractors involved... Cheers from a happy 1959 Plymouth Fury driver!
Glad you enjoyed it!
OOH !! A Fury. Red? Christine. You still have it?
This was somewhat different than a regular assembly plant. This plant used "knock down kits" to assemble the vehicles. Notice how most items are coming in railroad cars on the same train from Detroit. Essentially, in this type of plant everything is kitted together in one location and shipped to the kitted plant for assembly. Some parts may even be partially assembled before being shipped to reduce operations in the kitted plant.
This differs from a regular assembly plant where materials are received in by suppliers and from other plants and coordinated. Since Los Angeles was an outpost kitted assembly was used for most customers in the west for the most popular models. This was because you could fit more cars on a train if they were in parts vs. shipping whole cars. This also relieved the strain on the plants in the Midwest. I believe that these types of plants were also smaller and less sophisticated than a regular assembly plant as well.
That also meant that if an order was received outside of the type of popular models and options that were handled by this plant for a West Coast customer, that order would have been fulfilled in one of the regular plants and the finished car would be shipped to the dealer from across the country.
As demand for American cars fell in the West Coast and manufacturing got more efficient, these kitted plants were phased out and all production was supplied by regular assembly plants in the system further away.
Very cool info, thanks for sharing that.
Really different how the auto makers would put an assembly plant right out in an open field with no sheet metal plant next door...Thanks for uploading
The logistics of that plant were certainly interesting indeed. Thanks for watching!
Great film! My '58 Belvedere was assembled at Maywood so this is really great to see. I have a copy of the original build document from Chrysler Historic. It's amazing how they assembled the cars from a kit of parts..very cool!
I really loved watching this thanks
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
Welding the bodies was to me the most interesting, Chrysler cars built for1960 and later were uni bodies ,you can say cars back then were hand built.Also what was interesting is the outside supplied parts from many different companies, all USA of course.LOL.great video 👍Thanks for posting.
Glad you enjoyed it - thanks!
Absolutely amazing. I love this. Thank you. Fletch - Classic Restos TV Australia 👍
All put together and off to the lots for sale. Thank you for this share.
I always loved that red plad interior in the 59 Fury. I saw a Studebaker Truck delivering parts.
Thanks for watching, @plunkervillerr1529!
Hi Scott! U tube has 'fifty nine PLYMOUTH ASSEMBLY VIDEO That you guys should watch.
It was taken at MAYWOOD assebly plant. Enjoy, Rich
Thanks Dave!
Somebody put me in a time machine and send me back.
Joe biden needs you here to suffer
Excellent video! It is amazing how much work, so synchronized, went into the building of the Plymouth, and all American cars. From inception in 1928 up to and including the 1956 models, Plymouth had more innovations than GM or Ford combined! It was the Best Buy for price, reliability, durability, roadability, safety, practicality, and long-life. Beginning with the 1957 models, Virgil Exner's "Forward Look" designs, which were beautiful and caught the competition at GM and Ford off-guard, unfortunately superceded quality and reliability to the point that by 1959 Chrysler nearly went out of business! My family had such good luck with the 1949 Plymouth for 9 years, that in 1958 my parents upgraded to a factory ordered, mid-priced Dodge --- A REAL LEMON, having nothing but trouble with it. The first year of ownership, it was at the dealership service department every Monday morning for one thing or another! The dealer, Franklin Field Motors had no idea what was wrong with the new 1957 and 1958 models. Since I was a child, I do not know if the factory issued service bulletins back then, as they do today? The dealership went out of business in 1959! At 26,000 miles all the bearings in the engine of our car failed. That soured us on Chrysler products for the next three generations! We bought GM or Ford cars after that.
Some have argued that the Plymouth was not a very exciting design prior to 1957. I vehemently disagree! Chrysler Corp. was responsible for more innovations over the years, than GM and Ford combined! From inception in 1924 Chrysler cars came standard with an oil pump and filter, not available on a Chevrolet until 1955!, Ford until 1949! In 1924, it had a temperature gauge on the dashboard and hydraulic 4 wheel brakes, also not available on most GM and all Fords until 1939!
Whatever was standard on the most expensive Chrysler for safety and durability was also standard on the base, entry level Plymouths, Dodges, and DeSotos since inception of those models under Walter P. Chrysler in the 1920s. My parents' first brand new car was a top-of-the-line 1949 Plymouth Special Deluxe P18 Second Series 4 door sedan. They purchased it a few months before I was born in the Spring of 1949 for $1,629.00 excluding several options. It was the first year and first model of a low to mid- priced car built with the current style ignition key system, eliminating the starter button, still used on Chevrolets and Fords. That was the first and only year until 1973 that any car (including Cadillac, Lincoln, AND Packard) had a standard inside hood release. I would like to have that particular 1949 Plymouth today!
Cool story! Thanks for watching, @dr.kennethj.sacchetti2765!
The '49 Plymouth was a beautiful car with those ribbed bumpers, handsome grille, little fins housing the taillights, and wood grained dash. Very luxurious for a low-priced car.
My dad had a 1958 dodge coronet, no troubles at all, usual maintenance was it. He had it at least 6 years, 230 flathead 6, 2 speed power flight.
I had an older client years back who hired personnel for the GM assembly plant in los angeles back in the mid fifties. He said many workers wouldn't last but a few weeks because the work was too much for them. As a result of high labor turnover, quality suffered. He told me too many cars weren't right so they needed to lease parking areas locally to store new cars until they could be fixed of whatever problems they had.
Thanks for watching! Factory work is always hard, no doubt.
They actually chromed bumpers that were sitting in stacks outside the factory covered in rust with war surplus crap chrome and peddled it to the public only to have it reel off in ribbons after a short time exposing the rust below, and the frames were rusted going in too. I went on a field trip through one of those plants and couldn't believe it lol.
Wow! This is a cool video! A very good look at the 1959 model year materials handling of the in bound parts. And a very good look at just how labor intensive the whole build process was. There were people everywhere like ants at a picnic. And seeing a base model Plymouth going together, with the flathead inline six, 3 speed manual transmission and single exhaust with the base minimal chrome trim package. And of course seeing the top line plymouths with V8 motors, automatic transmissions and dual exhausts right in front of the 6 cylinder car. And the fitting, welding, brazing, leading the bodies before they were hand wiped down before the primer coats were sorta sprayed on. And the finish painting was not that uniform either. No wonder these cars did the instant rust thing. Seeing this assembly line and then the 1960 valiant assembly line video shows just how big of a technology, manufacturing process change and technology leap the unit body 1960 Plymouth Valiant was. Chrysler was really upping their game for 1960. And the changes from then to now are almost unbelievable.
Thanks for watching!
The rust thing was fixed by '59. It was mostly a '57 problem that drainage holes, sealant and primer fixed by end of '58s. 👀
Back when these men were proud of what they built!
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Wow, when folks used to actually work
A good day's work for a good day's pay.
What a difference between this and Ford's River Rouge plant where iron ore came in one end and finished cars went out the other. Ford's philosophy was "Eliminate the middle man."
Very different philosophies -- "do it all" versus "do what you do best". Still the same question today with vertical integration.
Awesome looking cars, one of my favourite 50's cars. One of Christine's younger sisters at 14:27. Pity about the rushed development and rust problems in the earlier cars :(
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Not a whole lot has changed. Amazing to see the dock operations, go to a modern assembly plant and you will see basically the same operation.
Thanks for watching, @normanfillmore3490!
313 or 318 poly motor those 318 poly motors were pure quality 👍🏻💯🇦🇺⛽️.
My mom & dad owned a 1959 Plymouth Savoy .. dad bought it new off the lot for 2,700.00 !!
That was too much
@@user-wy1dl2me2p it was on the lot with : 318 V-8 , automatic push button 3speed transmission , AM push button radio , heater , defroster , 2 speed windshield wiper, backup lights. A lot of options for an entry level series.
Almost $29,000 in todays money.
@@ericbivins8014 and by 1959 both my mom and dad had it with manual shift !!!!! When he and mom went looking for a new car mom insisted on automatic transmission !!! Lol
Amazing when we built all of our own products right here in the good old USA! People had jobs and the stuff lasted forever. Not like the junk today that is mass produced and breaks within an hour of use. I restore old Lionel locomotives that were built in New Jersey back in the day and hard to believe a toy 70 plus years old still runs!!!
Well... in my opinion, that's a yes and no. We tend to look back with rose-colored glasses. Vehicles of that era were usually dead and buried by 50k or 60k miles, and required frequent tune-ups just to keep going. Today, a car with 100k is only mid-life. 100k then would have been a miracle. I will say they certainly were easier to repair in those days, as the technology was much more simple. Thanks for watching!
And most of them were rusted hulks in just a few years. And 100k miles was used up.
@@wmason1961I've seen many that hit the salvage yards by 60-70k. But that's across the board on all makes -- they were simply built, inexpensive, and easily replaced. Folks wanted 'progress' above all, and loved to trade in cars as often as possible. IIRC, folks keep cars on average over 8 years now, but was only around 3 years then.
I remember as a kid how commonplace Chrysler forward looks were. Plymouth being the most of
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Interesting film. I was imagining the amount of damage to components as they were unloaded from railcars and restacked into pallet/dollies. Being in LA explains the amount of uncovered outdoor loading/unloading and the Southern Pacific cars.
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🤠 what a great find...pretty well preserved too...thank you for sharing...❤
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Here's a tech tip, skip to the 8 minute mark if you want to see something more than an inventory control specialist stacking boxes of parts.
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My dad had a '59 Chevy Impala. A great car ❤
Thanks for watching, @zurcherzurich213!
I really like this film very much. So much information of the time I loved the 1959 Plymouth. I was 9 yo and my friend Greg's family bought a new 1959 Fury in a metallic brown. It was beautiful I'll never forget that car in the summer sun. How much u think $4K?
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Great history , great cars 59 plymouth!
Glad you enjoyed it
Watch your fingers if there´s a red Fury on the line :D
🤘🤣
I toured the former Chevrolet plant in Janesville Wisconsin in 1972. The first thing they did was take my camera away and wouldn’t give it back until my tour was over. Sucked. A lot of the workers looked like they were strung out or drunk.
Well, the 1970's, man, you know... wild place. 😀 Thanks for watching!
Very interesting to see the individual components being delivered into the plant. Compared to the assembly line that part seemed very labor-intensive and kind of leisurely.
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Many farm tractors are built from knockdown kits brought in from overseas and assembled here. AGCO does that for most of their tractors.
This is really amazing to watch how they put these cars together. Also, that car manufacturing was once very strong in Los Angeles. It helps explain the decline of Los Angeles with a large exodus of manufacturing jobs from Los Angeles county.
Glad you enjoyed the video
The birthplace of “Christine”
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I had one, it was a Kick Start unit.
You had to get out and boot it behind the Front Tire Wheel Well.
It amazed passengers, but it managed to ground the Starter Solinoid.
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Each car probably gets hand tuned when it's finished. The good days.
Thanks for watching, @herbienbrian2!
I think that Our '57 Plaza 4dr sedan came off of that assembly line!
Cool! Thanks for watching
If you listen closely, as those '59 Plymouths left the assembly line, you can hear them, beginning to rust away.
Folks always say, “they don’t make them like they used to”. True. Cars today can go 200k miles with no problems. Back then, over 50k was near being scrapped. Thanks for watching!
So much hand labour and goods handling. So many small pieces being put together by hand. Cursory paint job and zero corrosion protection, no wonder they only lasted a few years. Ancient history now.
Thanks for watching, @nicholasmurphy8634!
At the beginning of the video when they’re unloading frames, I kept thinking, “Well, that’s the last year they’ll be doing that.”
Unibody has advantages at times. 😀
Same! They’d be unloading sub-frames in a few months.
The people in todays assembly plants should be ashamed compared to the people in the old days
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TUTTO IL FASCINO DI UN PRESTIGIOSO MARCHIO AMERICANO.
❤ love it
Thanks for watching, @bobdavis3357!
My DAd bought Mom a Plymouth Savoy it was Red and White
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Back when life was good. No left wing craziness.
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Beautiful cars! Almost hand assembled back then. Not a safety glasses nor hard hat in sight! And the paint booth....no respirators.
Thanks for watching, @RivetGardener!
The opening shots tell a story: a Chrysler plant, with a Cadillac and a Ford parked in front.
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Funny thing the last guy had to slam the trunk lid , for many years Chrysler cars trunk lids had to be slammed or they wouldnt lock .
Yup. The thick trunk seal requires a pretty hard slam.
My grandparents lived in Maywood. Their cute neighborhood looks like a third world country now
Sorry to hear that. Thanks for watching!
They had presence and style. Remembered with affection in N. Z.
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I think I spotted my dad's '59 Belvedere!
Always fun to see a car your family once owned.
WHEN FRAMES WERE FRAMES, AND NOT THIN TIN UNIBODY GARBAGE OF TODAY!!
Strange how these "thin tin unibody" cars always destroy the body on frame classics in real life accidents. Easy to find with google.
Maywood plant in SoCal built some Plymouth Satellites Roadrunners and Cudas in the end..
Cool! I would love to see film of that as well someday.
How come they don’t show anyone getting chewed out for damaging parts what with all the manual fooling with everything as employees try to get the stuff where it needs to go?
Movie magic. I'm sure they edited out people goofing off as well. 😁
Gracias, que gran video, reviviendo el pasado. Hoy día se ven menos que Ford y GM porque se fabricaron y se vendieron menos. Menos concesionarios en su momento y también con el correr de los años, menos piezas mecánicas y de carroceria en oferta para reposición o restauración. Me alegro que pude verlos, aún con años de uso, en circulación. Slu2 desde Rivera, Uruguay 🇺🇾
Thanks for watching, @RafaelRodri66!
I wonder are any of those Plymouths still around today? Im guessing the majority were rusted out by the late 60s and ended up being crushed. In 2024 some might be rusting into the ground where they were parked up decades ago.
There are still a good number of them around, but remember that 50k miles on any 1959 car was consider high mileage back then. They were made to be somewhat disposable.
I'm guessing my late father's 1958 Plymouth Suburban was assembled the same way. 🤔 Playlist on my channel.
May-Would sure be a really ugly car today! lol . . . .but I could watch these old assembly plant films back to back if only I could! Especially the first years of the car building days, fun to watch the evolution of this industry. Thanks for sharing our nations history that otherwise would be lost from memory. Great stuff!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Can you imagine them unloading vehicle frames 1 at a time today out of a rail car!!! The Supervisor would be going ballistic!😮😊
Thanks for watching!
When Cars were real and not woke or lap top 💩.
هذي السيارات القوية 😂😂😂😂👍👍👍
Missing the 'Bad to the Bone' music
Never thought of that, but yeah, that would have been a great choice, 😀
all american made,none of that over seas garbage nowadays
Thanks for watching!
I never buy new cars they are expensive crap. I buy old classics that appreciate every year. In my stable now are a 1971 Cuda, 1969 Super Bee, 1970 Power wagon, 1969 Dart, 1969 AMX, 1968 Javelin, and the 1959 Plymouth Fury with the Golden Commando engine. I bough the 1971 Cuda for 3000 dollars from the original owner. My wife drives a 1969 Charger RT.
That's a great collection! Thanks for watching!
That was a very awesome video. Any for the 57?
Working on it!
@@dstragand awesome 👍
Back when Americans cared about where their cars were made.Not a Toyota in sight,and it’s beautiful.
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My father bought a new 1959 Plymouth Savoy. The damn thing burnt oil.
Not unusual for then, the tolerances weren't like today. At least a quart in a 1,000 miles was common.
The Plymouth fury
from 1957 to 1961
Were simply stunning cars
If I only had the money
I would have the full range (00==v==00) 😄👍
Agreed! Thanks for watching!
At the end the security slamming that trunk😂 it was probably necessary right?
Actually, yes. They used a pretty thick trunk seal, so even on a restored car today it does take some effort.
Looked kind of disorganized,but going a slower and hand building isn’t all bad.
Factory assembly lines have become an actual science these days, to remove any inefficiencies. Back then, it was efficient but not like the hyper-efficeint lines of today.
Be cool to have some of those parts
True. You could probably retire on a truckful of NOS parts. Thanks for watching!
Wait, nothing made in China? Everything made here? Yep.
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Chrysler used a primitive teletype card based production system by the 50’s
Chrysler Historical can get you copies of those cards for many of the years with all the original build information.
I am no efficiency expert, but I have some idea of how the flow should be. I recently read a book, "The Arsenal of Democracy" which was mainly how Ford Motor Company built WWII Liberator bombers- Edsel Ford and his team starting with a farm field, was quickly setting up a system that was putting out a fully operational bomber every 55 minutes! From this film, I am watching so much wasted time.
2 easy steps
1. Assemble
2. Drive
Thanks for watching, @chargerdave2046!
That wasn't Christine coming off at 14:22 was it?
Christine was a 1958 -- these are 1959's -- but they are very similar in appearance! Thanks for watching
Great video except for the doofus music, which I simply muted 😎
Yup. Royalty-free music can be a bit rough. Thanks for watching!
14:48, why did this guy slam the trunk?
I know with a new trunk seal, it's hard to close the trunk lid until the seal settles some. That would be my guess. Thanks for watching!
@@dstragand that makes more sense 👍
What are they building, buses?
No, something bigger & heavier -- '59 Plymouths! 🤣
THE REAL AMERICA LOVE IT😊😊😊
Thanks for watching, @ferenckovacs6728!
Last year for body on frame construction for Chrysler.
Thanks for watching, @keikokenziesirasta7086!
Mom-and-pop carmaking
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I'll bet .50¢ injury every other day...way cool post👍👍
Yeah, but in those days you'd shake it off. Folks were tougher back then.
Actually Plymouth is a town in England, and has been for hundreds of years...if you don't believe me do a search.
Really? The 1950's and they were still welding with torches?
Robot welders were still science fiction then. Thanks for watching!
@@dstragand After WWII, electric resistance welding was considered the standard. Look at GM and Ford films of this era and you will see electric welders, but also automatic welders.
@@mshotz1 I didn't know that -- thanks!
These cars actually had horrific build quality. Windshields would leak cause rust problems after only a few months. That’s why you see so few of these cars. Monday and Friday cars had problems. UAW contract talks affected quality.
Quality was not a high point for any manufacturer then. It was not unusual to see any manufacturer's 1950's cars scrapped at around 60k miles.
1957 models indeed had a whole bunch of problems resulting from being the first year for this body and chassis which would have benefitted from another year of refinement before production. The 1958 model year was quite a bit better. 1959 was the last year , and most problems had been solved. The primary exception was severe body rust damage , the worst in climates where roads were salted in the winter.