Posted on Saturday, April 23, 2005 - 11:27 pm:

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The Chrysler Corporation operates several plants in the Detroit area. The Jefferson Avenue plant is a comparatively new and modern automobile plant of the finest description. Chrysler employs approximately 10,000 workmen, and the sales value of Chrysler products exceeds $165,000,000 annually.

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Posted on Monday, April 25, 2005 - 4:53 pm:

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Divco's Past in the Present

The very first truck of what would later become known as “DIVCO’s” was an electric vehicle designed by George Bacon, Chief Engineer of the Detroit Electric Car Company, on Antoinette Street in Detroit. The firm was owned by William Anderson. who authorized construction of a test vehicle in 1920. Unfortunately, in tests for the Detroit Creamery, it became apparent that battery power was not the way to go when delivering perishable milk products in very hot or very cold weather.

When DECC went bankrupt, Bacon presented his designs to others, and the Detroit Industrial Vehicle Company (D. I. V. C. O.) was founded to manufacture the truck using a LeRoi gasoline engine. This proved much more practical, and in 1926 and 1927 a total of 25 trucks were tested by Detroit Creamery, produced in a plant on Fort Street West, a main Detroit thoroughfare.

The success of these first “DiVcos” brought in new capital to put the truck into full production. With the new funding came a new name, “Divco Detroit Corporation,” and a new factory, located at 2435 Merrick Avenue, near Grand River in Detroit, which was the old Gemmer Manufacturing Corporation plant. (This company later made Divco’s steering gears.)

Unfortunately, because of the rigors of multi-stop delivery, many components had to be developed from scratch. Heavier brakes, clutches, transmissions, higher output generators, and other components to withstand up to 300 starts and stops, and long idle times each day, needed to he designed and created. The work quickly exhausted most of the capitalization acquired in 1927 and so by the Great Depression, the company was just barely getting by, ultimately being taken over by a committee of its creditors in 1931.

In April, 1932 the company was auctioned by the Creditors Committee, with a winning bid accepted from Continental Motors. The name was changed to “Continental Divco Company,” and the operations were moved to the Continental Building at 12801 East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit. The facility on Merrick Avenue still stands, today being used as a recycling center.

Continental Divco was short lived however. New investors purchased the Divco line while at the same time buying the rights to delivery trucks produced by the Twin Coach Company of Kent, Ohio. Twin Coach, which was formed by the Fageol family to build buses and trucks, stopped producing trucks in Kent, and in May and June, 1936, the new firm combined both truck operations as the “Divco-Twin Truck Company,” and apparently continued production of both style vehicles on Jefferson Avenue.

Demand grew and in late 1937 property was purchased at 22000 Hoover Road in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan, and a new, modem production factory was built, being occupied in July, 1939. The company offices also were moved to that location, with the move coinciding within months of the introduction of the new “Snub-Nosed” style delivery truck. The new design superseded both the Divco and Twin Coach style trucks made until then. The company continued to be known as “Divco-Twin,” as they wanted to keep the loyal customers of both firms. They also promoted the plant and office location as being in Detroit, as “Detroit” was still one of the initials in the original Divco name. The company name was changed to simply the “Divco Corporation” in January, 1944 as the Twin Coach name no longer served a purpose.

The old Continental plant found other uses and parts of it are still standing in 1996. Still visible is the name “Continental” spelled out in the brick of the structures tall smokestack.

During WWII the Hoover Road plant was taken over by the War Board for the production of aircraft parts, and other military items. Truck production was suspended for the duration, and by the war’s end, the pent up demand sparked factory additions. The new, expanded plant continued truck production for many more years.

In November, 1956, Divco Corporation acquired the assets of Wayne Works, Inc., a manufacturer of school and other bus bodies. Delivery truck production continued on Hoover Road, but corporate offices of the newly renamed “Divco-Wayne Corporation” were moved to the Wayne Works bus production hometown of Richmond, Indiana. The firm also diversified with funeral car and ambulance production by Miller-Meteor in Bellefontaine, Ohio, electronics components formerly made by a division of Gruen Watch Co in Cincinnati, Ohio, and special contracts operations performed in at the Wayne Piqua Division in Piqua, Ohio.

Many other worldwide manufacturing operations were acquired in the early 1960’s as the conglomerate continued to diversify, including Estavan Industries, through a Canadian subsidiary, and mobile home production in England.

The growth of Divco-Wayne attracted other conglomerates as well, and in 1967 and 1968 D-W was acquired itself by Boise-Cascade Corporation, which spun off delivery truck manufacturing in 1968 to Hiway Products Corporation. Interestingly enough, H-P also had bought the rights to manufacture buses under the Twin Coach name, and set about establishing bus production in the old Twin Coach building in Kent Ohio.

Their primary purpose in buying Divco rights was to land a lucrative contract to build mail trucks, however, and to raise start-up capital to make them, the rights for multi-stop snub nosed truck manufacture were resold to interests controlled by Glen W. Way along with the Divco brand name. The firms’ divisions included Hughes-Keenan, which made Roustabout Cranes, Transairco, and Correct Manufacturing. The Divco production plant on Hoover Road was later sold to Chrysler Corporation which used it for several years. Today three unrelated businesses occupy the property. None uses the 22000 Hoover Road address. [Today, it is empty and up for sale or lease – MikeM]

In 1968 the snub-nosed production line was moved for the last time, to a former crane factory in Delaware, OH. It was here production ceased in January, 1986 after G. W. Way suffered a stroke and his businesses interests were liquidated. Today the complex is mostly abandoned, but some minor hints of Divco construction still remain.

The trademark rights to the Divco brand name, logos, and snub nosed truck production remain held by the bankruptcy estate of Correct Mfg. Apparently there are no plans to revive the brand.

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Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 2:51 am:

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Multi-Million Dollar Expansion of Chrysler Engineering Facilities to Begin Immediately



Expansion of the Corporation’s engineering facilities at the Highland Park plant is now underway. James C. Zeder, Vice President in charge of the Corporation’s engineering activities, said a multi-million dollar construction program, to be completed in March, 1956, will increase working space at Highland Park by nearly one-third.

“Virtually all elements of the Engineering Division will benefit directly from this expansion,” Mr. Zeder said. “But particulai’ emphasis is to be placed on greatly enlarged and improved facilities for our styling and body design groups.”

The expansion program will ultimately mean a 20 per cent increase in employment in the Engineering Division, Mr. Zeder added, with more than 800 engineers, technicians and supporting personnel to be added during the next 18 months.

Mr. Zeder described the expansion program as “further evidence of our determination to maintain product leadership and reputation for engineering ‘firsts’ that have always been associated with the Chrysler name.

“We fully expect,” Mr. Zeder added, “the next 10 years to be as productive of exciting new automotive developments as the past three decades and we are going to continue Chrysler engineering leadership by employing the finest technical people and supplying them with the most modern tools and equipment we can obtain.”

Major construction items in the expansion program include a large new three-story building of 182,112 square feet, to be devoted principally to body design and styling; a substantial addition to the present three-story body design building facing Oakland Ave., which will give it a total floor area of 63,540 square feet and a major addition to the dynamometer laboratories.

Mr. Zeder explained that the spacious new three-floor building will house passenger car and truck advanced design studios, six rooms for creation of full scale clay models, a large display room and extensive facilities for build-up of experimental and prototype bodies.

The enlarged body design building will be occupied by body engineering offices, drafting rooms and product and color styling groups.

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Increasing Production Capacity By 40 Per Cent at Chrylser Division


This picture shows the old American Body plant on the north side of Jefferson. It runs north to Kercheval, so was called the Kercheval plant.

"Far below the towering “Chrysler FirePower” sign overlooking Detroit’s East Jefferson Ave. (see cover), construction crews are well along in building a new plant and expanding present facilities at the Kercheval-Jefferson location.

In a matter of days after the first pilings were driven in January, the new building began to go up where the single story paint and trim storage building of the Kercheval plant had stood. The new two-story construction will house both body sub-assembly and paint departments when work is completed about June 1.

The present eight-story plant will be completely revamped and modernized and a bridge housing conveyors to carry car bodies from the new plant to final assembly across Jefferson is being built. The new plant will feature the longest and most modern continuous conveyor system in use in the automobile industry (14 miles in length). Chrysler Division President E. C. Quinn said production capacity will be increased from 54 to 75 bodies an hour, more than 1,200 per day, as a result of the expansion. It will mean a proportionate increase in the Division’s 16,500 work roll as well.

Before construction is through, more than 600,000 cubic feet of concrete will be poured and 6,500 tons of steel erected.

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Plymouth Tooling New Engine Plant: Ready in Fall of 1955


This view is looking northeast with Mound in the forground and Eight Mile at the top.

"Plymouth’s powerful V-8 engine will be produced in the huge Detroit Mound Road Plant, which will be expanded to 530,000 square feet by next Fall. John P. Mansfield, Plymouth President, termed the Division’s new engine manufacturing facilities “the very latest in quality control of output.”

Defense assignments under which the Company has been producing aircraft parts at Mound Road under sub-contract to Boeing, are being transferred to the Chrysler Jet Engine Plant in order to use the entire Mound Road Plant for the production of V-8s.

Some of the features of the expanded plant: Two parallel production lines will be used for machining cylinder blocks. Each line is over a quarter mile long, encompassing a total of 157 operations on 70 machines. Heading these lines will be four of the largest mechanical broaches ever built, each 12 feet high, 19 feet wide and 59 feet long.

All of the thousands of machines used in the Plymouth engine plant will be equipped with the latest in safety devices, insuring the utmost in overall plant safety.

As a result of the expansion the Division will be able to triple its present production of V-8 engines.

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Chrysler Car Shipments Hit All-Time High for February

An all time high in February shipments of passenger cars from Chrysler Corporation assembly plants was announced by C. L. Jacobson, Vice President. He reported the Company shipped a record February total of 132,456 passenger cars from plants in Detroit, Evansville, Ind., and Los Angeles, surpassing by more than 20 per cent the previous February, 1951, high of 109,937. From its Detroit plants during February alone, the Corporation shipped cars out of the city at the average rate of more than 2.7 automobiles per minute, each day, on an around-the-clock basis.

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Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 9:43 pm:

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Recently Completed Engineering Expansion is typical of Chrysler Corporation’s Post War Growth

In the past ten years Chrysler Corporation has more than doubled its plant space and is rapidly accelerating expansion plans. Since the end of World War II it has spent nearly $700-million on plants and facilities, not including the cost of tooling for new models, in a continuing and successful effort to stay right in the middle of the industry’s most competitive sales fight.

The quickening schedule of growth was highlighted last fall when President L. L. Colbert announced a five year program calling for the expenditure of one billion dollars in new plant sites and for the improvement of facilities the Company already has.

This record investment has but one purpose: to give Chrysler Corporation the added capacity to keep on producing our cars in volume and to be able to raise capacity to keep further increasing volume production as our share of the market increases. The result of this long range program will mean more responsible jobs for our people and more security in those jobs.

Tangible proof of the program can already be seen. Within the past year, for example, these projects have been completed:

ENGINEERING: Just finished is the largest expansion of Chrysler Corporation’s engineering facilities in the Company’s history. It increases working space by nearly one-third and will ultimately mean a 20 per cent increase in Engineering Division employment. The spacious new three-floor building houses passenger car and truck advanced design studios, six rooms for creation of full-scale clay models, a large indoor and outdoor display area and extensive facilities for build-up of experimental and prototype bodies.


James C. Zeder, Vice President-Engineering, described the program as “further evidence of our determination to maintain product leadership and reputation for engineering ‘firsts’ that have always been associated with the Chrysler name.”

HIGHLAND PARK PISTON: Aluminum casting equipment of the latest design has been placed in operation in the Highland Park plant’s piston foundry, increasing its capacity by 50 per cent. Up to 75,000 aluminum pistons of a single type can now be produced at the foundry in a 24-hour day compared with 52,000 previously. These expanded facilities will enable the plant to supply 75 per cent of expected requirements for Plymouth and Dodge V-S engines, 100 per cent of the pistons for Plymouth six-cylinder engines, all the pistons for the DeSoto and Chrysler V-8 engines and all the Dodge truck piston requirements.

PLYMOUTH ENGINE PLANT: The former Detroit Mound Road defense plant was completely remodeled and equipped with the newest machine tools for engine production. It has the capacity to produce 3,000 V-S engines a day for Plymouth cars.

CHRYSLER DIVISION: Production facilities were increased by 40 per cent giving it a peak capacity of 1,200 cars a day by building a new manufacturing plant and installing a new body assembly and painting operation.

KOKOMO: The capacity for increasing the production of automatic transmissions for all Chrysler Corporation cars was doubled with the completion of this plant.

MACK PLANT: Modernization of fabricating, assembly and painting facilities of the Stamping and General Manufacturing Group’s Mack Plant in Detroit. The program consisted of installing a new paint spraying system, realignment of machinery, conveyors and fixtures for simplifying body assembly methods and enlargement of metal stamping capacity by equipping the plant with three new press lines consisting of 21 large presses each.

DETROIT UNIVERSAL: Purchase of two plants and the equipment and inventories of Universal Products Company greatly added to the capacity to produce automotive drive shafts and their components.

TRAINING CENTER: The industry’s most modern training center is located in Centerline, Michigan. It houses the combined activities of the Corporation’s executive service staff and the Chrysler Corporation Conference of Sales Training.

At the present there are other major programs which will be completed in the near future. One of the world’s largest stamping and metal fabricating plants is now in construction near Twinsburg, Ohio. It will cover a million and a half square feet and have 28 lines of presses. The new plant will supplement existing stamping capacity at the Stamping and General Manufacturing Group’s Detroit area plants.

When completed the Delaware Tank Plant will be nearly doubled in size and have a capacity of producing approximately 5,000 Plymouth cars a week. The Newark plant will form one more element in a network of new Chrysler plants being built to supply the growing market on the Eastern seaboard.

A new addition to the building is part of the Lynch Road expansion program. It will add 78,000 more square feet of manufacturing space. New equipment and the relocation of some operations will give the plant higher capacity as well as improved working conditions.

More than 1,700 acres of farmland in Troy Township, near Detroit, has just recently been purchased to assemble a site for possible future expansion of engineering and research facilities. Mr. Colbert emphasized that the land acquisition is an “insurance” measure for potential future expansion.

In planning these expansion pro-grams, the possibility exists that the one billion dollar figure over a five year period may prove conservative. As Mr. Colbert said, “It may very well be that if the Company continues to move in the years ahead as it has in recent years, we will find it necessary to revise our investment plans upward.”

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Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 9:56 pm:

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Two Divisions Created in ABD Reorganization

Establishment of a new 19-plant Stamping and General Manufacturing Group within Chrysler Corporation has been announced by President L. L. Colbert as a major step forward in the Corporation’s organization program.

The new group includes the facilities of the Automotive Body Division which, in December of 1953, was formed around a nucleus of plants purchased from the Briggs Manufacturing Company at that time. The change in organization further integrates the former Briggs facilities with the Chrysler Corporation system.

The administrative realignment brings 19 plants in three states under the supervision of Vice President John E. Brennan as Group Executive. “This is in keeping,” Colbert said, “with the pattern that was established with the formation of the Special Products Group more than a year ago, and formation of the Engine and Transmission Group in February of 1956.

“Since our plans to divisionalize our organization were first announced in our 1953 annual report,” Colbert continued, “every part of the Corporation has been analyzed to improve quality, efficiency, cost and profit. This latest advance is a result of that program.”

The Stamping and General Manufacturing Group is comprised of two Divisions — the Stamping Division and the Parts and Equipment Manufacturing Division.

For the present time Brennan will serve in the dual capacity of Group Executive and General Manager of the Stamping Division. Brennan has named Fred Osann Jr. General Manager of the Parts and Equipment Manufacturing Division. Osann had been staff executive and director of forward planning for the Automotive Body Division.

The Stamping Division consists of 16 plants (14 in the Detroit area and two in Indiana). It includes the major part of the one-time Briggs properties. This Division concentrates under a single operating head specialized knowledge of automotive sheet metal operations, die-making, and welding techniques to produce body and chassis stampings and assemblies.

Three plants comprise the Parts and Equipment Manufacturing Division (two in the Detroit area and one in Indiana). Heart of this Division is the Highland Park plant, which was one of the original Chrysler properties acquired from Maxwell.

Unified under a single operating head in the Parts and Equipment Manufacturing Division are the production of fuel, electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic systems; brightwork trim items; interior and exterior body hard and soft trim items; chassis parts and accessories such as steering linkages and suspensions.

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Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 11:20 pm:

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PRESSED TO ORDER

Chrysler’s Nine Mile Press Plant shows the world why “changing and improving” means top products, working conditions

When industrial concerns build a new plant, many simply plan for their immediate production needs and regard the future with a skeptical eye. Others, however, build a factory with the future very much in mind. They know their plant will never remain the same, that it must change periodically to provide better working conditions and new industrial innovations.

Chrysler Corporation is a leader in the latter school of thought, proving to the automotive world that better working conditions mean better products. A typical example of Chrysler’s “change-and-improve” philosophy is the Nine Mile Press Plant in Detroit.

Relatively small when the original building was completed in 1948, the plant now is the second largest of its type in the world. Several major and minor additions, all keyed to Corporation-wide needs, have resulted in the following: well over a million square feet of floor space; 24 major press lines and related equipment; almost 300 presses ranging in size from 60 to 1,400 tons (pressure); a present production of 270 separate stampings for Chrysler Corporation cars and trucks.

Actual “birth” of the Nine Mile Press Plant was in October, 1947. After studying several revised estimates, Dodge Division management decided on a plant with six major press lines (in a building constructed for 12 lines), totaling 45 presses. Construction was completed in the last quarter of 1948, and the first stamping jobs — service fenders for MoPar and production sills for Dodge Trucks—were completed March 29, 1949.

Installation of four more press lines was approved in December, 1949. In June of the following year, the approval of still two more lines completed the original complement of 12 major lines.

Space needs were considered when a major addition (320 by 1,200 feet) was approved in May, 1950.

By this time the plant was really rolling. Actual construction or plans on hand had doubled the plant’s capacity in less than a year and a half. But, as big as previous expansion orders had been, they were small compared to plans which got underway in 1952. The big order was: redouble production (stamping) capacity at the Nine Mile Press Plant.

The job was completed in the fall of 1954, when Nine Mile had 24 major press lines. Today, in terms of floor space, productive capacity and personnel, the Nine Mile Press Plant ranks among the leaders in the automotive world.


Front fenders for 1955 Plymouths receive their initial shape in the huge draw press above, operated by W. Hawkins and W. Porter.


Underneath the main floor is a vast, vault-like basement with facilities for storage, scrap disposal and press maintenance. (Some of the big, multiple-action “toggle” presses, which stand 18 feet high from main floor level, have another 17 feet of driving mechanism below the floor for an over-all height of 35 feet.)

Modern and efficient in design, the plant also houses a pair of rare—yet relatively simple—industrial innovations: scrap disposal with the aid of television and a “two-in-one” heating system in conjunction with neighboring Dodge Truck.

Scrap steel from stamping operations falls through chutes into hoppers in the basement. Lift trucks carry filled hoppers to a baling machine, which produces 800-pound bales of scrap. Here is where TV enters the picture. The baling machine operator, aided by a closed-circuit television network, sends the bales by conveyor to gondola cars on an outside spur track. Looking at the screen near his position, the operator sees when a gondola is filled, then shunts it ahead and brings up an empty car — all with controls at his fingertips.


Above are a few of the 24 press lines now producing stampings for Chrysler cars, trucks.


Heat is no problem at the Nine Mile Press Plant, even though a trained observer probably could not find the source. The reason? There is no source, at least not within a considerable distance from the plant. Here’s how Chrysler people did it:

When the plant was built on a 46-acre tract adjoining Dodge Truck property, engineers were faced with the usual heating problem. They solved it by examining existing heating facilities at the Truck Plant. Rather than build a completely new unit, they expanded the one at Dodge Truck, dug a 2,000-foot tunnel and connected the Press Plant to Dodge Truck’s steam heating plant. The tunnel, about five feet wide and seven feet high, contains a steam line and a condensation line for returning used water.

The unusual, of course, is only a sidelight to the plant’s main function: production of stampings for all Divisions of Chrysler Corporation. In peak production the plant consumes over 1,200 tons of steel per day on such items as all center pillars used in Corporation •cars and trucks, practically all the major parts of Dodge Trucks and a good share of stampings for Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto and Chrysler.

Today the Nine Mile Press Plant is a symbol not only of continual change to achieve top manufacturing efficiency, but of a proven Chrysler philosophy which directly affects all Corporation employees:
better working conditions mean better products.

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 11:34 am:

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Fleetwood Plant Site
Delray, 261 West End Ave (at West Fort Street), Detroit
This plant was initially constructed (by Albert Kahn) in 1917 to
build WWI aircrafts.
Fisher Body acquired Fleetwood Body Corp. in 1925 for
$650,000. Fleetwood’s Pennsylvania plant was small and obsolete
even then. Its reputation, on the other hand, ranked at
the top of the coach building industry. Fleetwood thus became
Cadillac’s in-house coachbuilder, and GM promoted its name
nearly as much as Fisher’s. Soon after the purchase, Fisher moved
Fleetwood’s sales offi ce and design personnel from New York
City to Detroit and made Plant #18 the main Fisher Body
Fleetwood plant. Then in 1931, GM closed the Pennsylvania
facility altogether, moving some of its craftsmen to Detroit. The
plant was closed by GM in the 1980’s and torn down in 1993.
A majority of the site now stores shipping containers with a
small remnant of the plant still standing East of West End
Ave.

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