By the 1950s the company started by the Fisher Brothers to provide custom bodies for rich people had become the pillar of General Motors manufacturing empire. Every division relied on Fisher body to deliver the sheet metal it would sell. Eventually, the Fisher division was done away with when it was considered to be too ungainly but in the 1950s it was the king of auto manufacturing.
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My dad worked at Fisher Body late 30's till 59!
Cannot get enough of your films you have saved and posted. Thank you very much, KING ROSE.
I remember the Body By Fischer embley on the rocker panel trim plate on GM cars up until the 90s Buick Ciera Cutlass....
Its so hard watching videos of how self reliant we were. How productive and proud we were in producing some of the best products in the world. Now we are reduced to consumerism from corporations outsourcing to sub par quality in the name of profits. American pride is no more. R.I.P. To the greatest Country the world has ever seen.
When America was strong & people loved this country
What I want to know is, What Happened!!
Jack Mehoff ..Incompetent Government's and greed
And unions were strong. Every worker in this film was UAW.
@@jackmehoff4613 Since people want to earn more, then the equation does not close or work for companies. So, they (companies) looking for lower costs of hand labor outside of USA. Today is China. in the 60s Japan placed in the US steel of better quality and cheaper than that produced in Pittsburgh. Here the question is when the economy in United States and in some areas began to stay behind.
Amen so true
I once had a beautiful 1949 Chevy Body By Fisher Fast Back 2 door the neatest Old Car I ever owned!
As a recent retiree of GM, I appreciate this more than some...
i spent 32 years at delco dayton ohio still have my 56 belair a 6 corvairs to this day .. go gm
animalcorvair Nice to hear from a fellow vet...I was 31 years at St. Catherines powertrain, and Oshawa Truck....My first was a 1964 Olds F-85 I bought in 1977....Only wish I still had it BTW, I joined the UAW in 1979....we changed to the CAW in 1984 (not a free vote)
animalcorvair I am restoring my 1960 bel air this year. Upgrading the motor and tranny but all exterior will be cascade green including the steel wheels.
@@animalcorvair luckily I still have my 72 Chevelle. I am glad I kept it.
@@walterweddle7644 dad had a 67 an a 71 mom sent the 71 to heaven ,, she was ok as she had her seat belt on..found them a 79 2door caprice ..i have it now ,,mint but the heat liner thats easy to fix,,,no rust
As a retiree from ac delco in Indiana, I really appreciate this video! ! I just wish it were still this way! Thanks
It can be if we all just bought domestic cars….
(9/29/2019) I’m not old enough, but I am old enough to remember seeing a horse pulled carriage fisher body logo stamped on the metal strips that were placed below old car doors. I just don’t remember on which cars. I’ll be fifty next year. But this video draws me all the same towards comfort in the good ‘ol days.
That was on all GM cars. Fisher Body used to be an independent coach company that was bought by GM. Fisher Body was phased out as a separate division in the early 80s and that's when the Body by Fisher door sills stopped.
That’s cool I still remember seeing the fisher plate when you opened up the doors
I can still picture the sill plate with Fisher stagecoach logo in my grandfather's 71 impala convertible
Joseph Brady we had a 70 Impala, and thats one of the details that always stood out to me. It was a gorgeous car, and my mom always said it was by far the best car they ever owned. I still want one just like it...
I had a late 80's Buick Skylark with body by Fisher it was great
I miss those old big land yachts, they were so comfortable and had so much interior space.. I wish they still made those cars today
...thanks for reminding me of just how good the'Good Ole Days' were...
As we all drive imported cars…..
The more of these old vids I watch the deeper I see this Country in serious trouble unfortunately
We are in deep shit! My friend of 40 years came by the other day with a Lincoln Navigator that retailed for $100,000... how many Americans can afford those cars for much longer? It's all collapsing right in front of us!
@@earthstewardude Maybe it’s time to buy a Toyota Corolla? Under 30 grand
We have been in trouble for quite some time, but have ignored the signs. You can see aspects of early automation in this video, which tended to dilute skilled trades and make unskilled or semi-skilled classifications obsolete. Jobs have been bleeding from the auto industry since the 1940's as a result of automation and de-centralization. Better automation, aided by computers, along with foreign competition, cut down America's lead in the 1960's until we no longer held the title in the 1970s; things have only gotten worse since then. The fact is, the global economy that the U.S. helped push to the fore in the wake of WWII, has been both our greatest success and our greatest failure. As a result of the historical and technological forces I've described above, manufacturing in the U.S. will never be what it once used to be.
@@benbird2100 I am 65 so i remember the gas 'shortage' in mid 70's and then another one about 1980. 1st one we saw the rise of Toyota and Datsun when they were true 'rice boxes' just 2 doors and a 4 speed but they got 25-30 mpg. 1st. one in about 1975 i had a 67 Camaro Yenko clone, 427/425 with a 4 speed and 456 gears, i worked at a Shell station then and customers used to flip out when gas hit 50 cents a gallon, known as liquid gold then and 'siphoning' was rampant
Well yeah jim. It's not just the US, it's the whole western world empire. It's crumbling now, as empires always do in the end. But maybe that's not a bad thing. We're a selfish, greedy species that exploit the planet and each other. The inequalities in wealth are totally obscene. But to keep an optimistic note, perhaps when this western empire finally caves in completely (probably in the very near future), something saner may arise from the ashes. Let's hope so :)
My ancestors owned the Brewster Carriage Works back in the 1800's. When the old man died it was split up between his sons. 1 son failed. 1 did ok. And the 3rd ended up selling his part to some man named Fisher. The Fishers took it from a carriage company to what we all know now as Fisher Body.
Love that Body by Fisher
What a serious series of beautifully styled cars.
“Manufacturing methods” they learned from ford
Body by Fisher. The badge was attached to the door entrance. GM cars wore that badge with pride. No other car maker in the 60s could match the quality
Ford and Chrysler also made good quality back then People took pride in their job Not like people of today do not
And the quality went down in the ‘70’s.
that fisher body badge is and always will be burnt in my brain because as a kid growing up in Flint Michigan in the 70s were GM was King I can remember that badge was the first thing I seen when crawling as a little boy into our car and my grandmother's car and then I got a little older and it was just the first thing your eyes would look at when opening the door to our car that's crazy but that was litterly the first thing you would look at was that fisher body badge on the top of the rocker panel when opening a GM car and now 50 years later when I go out in my Garage and open the door to my 68 Corvette it's the first thing I look at. Them Fisher Brothers sure knew what they were doing when they placed their body by fisher badge in that exact spot, pure genius I'll say. 👍
The Fishers, out of Norwalk Ohio! Norwalks hospital is named Fisher Titus. My hometown
Iv'e had my " Body by Fisher" 67 Camaro for 40 years.
I have my Atlanta built 1970 Chevelle SS 454 and my two Flint built Regal turbo V-6 cars one carbureted and one original fuel injected turbocharged! I was part of the concept group that created the concept turbo V-6 that was used in the Indy pace cars then went into production. I also have a Flint built 1970 Chevelle SS 454 a 1969 and a 1970 Buick GS two door that my grandfather bought through the special office production order at Buick in Flint these are sacred parts of my life and my family history
The music reminds me of victory in Europe documentaries, showing ally troops driving through liberated cities and villages with cheering locals lining the way.
i thank its so cool that i have a 87 caprice and a 91 caprice with fisher body parts its sad tho that alot of places left detroit
Great video keep digging them up love watching them shows what life was before my time I was born in 1954 people then so much nicer then now everybody's in the fast Lane thank you for the video 👍🇺🇸
Me..1951! Grew up with these cars! Now, am fortunate to have a 55! Olds
In 58 i got a honorable mention at a nation wide school kid Design contest. My car model looked just like the 63 Corvette. Wish i had pictures ,oh it had a boxer engine (like a corvair.)
Belated congratulations.
This is a film made by Jam Handy at one time one of the largest movie production studios in the US, and right down the street from GM in Detroit.
You're right. They were on West Grand Blvd. and were the part of the thriving community of industrial film production companies in Detroit. They also produced films for Bell Telephone, Coca Cola and others. They'd hire directors from New York and LA and actors too. They supported a healthy industry of film labs, equipment rental houses and crews who made these films. Most of that has disappeared.
Very interesting manufacturing processes constantly improved upon and strengthened as time progressed. This proved to be especially true when the transition was made to all steel turret roofs, steel inner body support members and unitized construction of the body shell. All in all this film highlighted advanced manufacturing techniques that resulted in greater strength, safety and beauty of the end product
Man I appreciate this upload!!!
A time where life was appreciated and government hadn't quite screwed us over yet. Now we're begging for these days to come back... I sure hope the hell history repeats itself like they say it does.
Anyone remember Al McGuire, basketball genius, describing Charles Barkley (and others?) as, "Bawdy by Fishah!" Just cracked me up, back in the day and 40 years later is still pure gold. I coach youth basketball, and I use it for all my big butt, wide hips, post players. They don't get it.
My conversion van and my cadillac had their bodies made by that company. Also didn't have to worry about body rot
Fisher Body was absorbed by GM
When I was a kid I culdent understand why body by Fisher bragged about that old fashioned stage coach. When the car was. A beautiful PONTIAC 😭( I remember I was eye level w/ that decal on the bottom of the door jam)
Great video! Thank´s for sharing!
GREAT VIDEO I SSEN SOO MANY OF THOSE CARS WHEN I WAS YOUNG
Yhe early 50s GM line up wasn't the most stylish looking cars mostly due to the interruption of WW2. Car manufacturers were still ramping up production and were in a style slump.
what scares me is a lack of eye protection and how dangerous some of those jobs were
Even the ergos: Imagine lifting heavy bench seats into position at 11:15 shift after shift. Especially the guy in the car; just watching that made my bad back ache.
Love this and we need to build these again
Así empezó la época dorada del automóvil americano hermosos autos que hoy en día son admirados por su elegancia
That dude at 6:00 running his hand down the glass to check it is hardcore. Imagine what his hands were like. Real men
It's literally phenomenal how advanced they get in just 12 years from this video. Talking automation advances, ability to produce and ship mass quantities of body's to GM assembly plants across the world!
Realy nice channel ✔. I can live in 30s 40s :)
Well it won't be but 10 more years and youl be there. R H 😄
Meu pai teve um Chevrolet 1951 por 20 anos, excelente carro.
An excellent insight into auto-engineering 👍🌏🆒🐨
The good ole American way and beautiful cars and we need to bring em back
Not going to happen They all are made of plastic and soon will be battery power
Actual people earning a living wage on an assembly line?!?
That's how it used to be back when this was still America. And we had unions to ensure we were treated fairly by the fascist corporations. Ronald Wilson Reagan fucked that up.
Wow they had child proof doors then also.
@@CrazyBear65 no brain, that's how it was when we had sound money.
@@CrazyBear65 seriously? There are still unions, and as you can see, heavily into unionized government. How's that working out? Unions are still in autos, steel, etc and USA still building strong. Ronald Reagan has nothing to do with ills and weakness of USA.
@@JDAbelRN Take a good look at this video and what do you see?.People doing agood honost days work. Today businesses are closing because this current generation would rather sit on their asses and collect 300 dollars a week from jackass Biden than go out and get a job!!!!!.
They didn't show how there was room for a kid to lay up on the deck below the rear window. I'd ride up there in long trips in my dad's Olds 88 because my parents & 4 siblings occupied all the seats.
Amazing they did away with the No draft ventilation windows. We’ve regressed
Isto sim é um Automóvel! Parabéns USA !
Thanks
Detroit used to have 2 body by fisher plants. The one I remember most was the one on the corner of fort street and springwells.
Fleetwood and Fisher Guide on Livernois and Fort
gostei do vídeo. muito legal. Brasil 2017
Looks like they used a lot of advanced technology.
Most of the segments were filmed in Grosse Pointe, MI along Lakeshore Drive.
Girls were cuter..cars were hand-built..houses were bigger...everything better,more innocent, hard-working AMERICANS...
All I can say YES!!
Ahmed Koten Yep and now be are blessed with bitter disgusting feminist, forced diversity, and terrible music...
Nonsense, Ahmed ! Houses were SMALLER. Typically 1000 sq. ft. Hand built my butt..... And the girls are just as cute.
Also, tRump. Ugghhh.
Hell yes! Wooden ships and iron men!
Great!!!!
The original Fisher Body building in Flint on the south end of Saginaw Street was sold off years ago and just recently it has been vandalized severely, the original bank that delivered the cash payroll under the street in a tunnel is also still there but in a state of despair soon both buildings will most likely be demolished.
I know I ride by it everyday and it breaks my heart to see it sitting there with broken windows God I wish I had the money to buy it and restore it back to its glory. it's so sad that Flint won't do anything about it's despair and to think this Fisher body building was were the great sit down strike took place back in the 30s.😔
the tooling alone for this factory is as amazing as the cars. And no computers back then. No coal miners needed to come in and write code.
I lived not to far from Fisher Body Fleetwood plant I could see part of the plant from the upstairs back window at night
Wonder if the parting shot was filmed along Lake Shore Drive in Grosse Pointe, Mi
Sherri Marco Not sure I'm seeing the shot you're referring to. If you get a chance post the time where the shot comes up. I'm sure there are a number of Michiganians here who'll chime in. As an ex-Michiganite I'll probably have an opinion too. Thanks for watching.
+Sherri Marco I think it is Lakeshore Drive. Near the start it looks like it's going by the fancy lakefront mansions.
Dude watch that secondhand smoke!
No worries with the no draft Vent-a-Pane.
GM got rid of Fisher Body because of cost cutting having autos built in one plant instead of two part of a vehicle being made at one plant then being shipped to the other for final assembly saving money on employees shipping etc costs
When was a kid fisher body would send us a model kit to design a body. Win prizes and a chance getting to show our design.
cars being built are 1950 chevys. one at the end is a pontiac i believe.
Yep
My 55 Chevy was made by fisher
What is the car at minute 2?
Old as hell.😂
This reminds me of watching a filmstrip in school in the 70s. Cartoon music, narrator sounds like he's a lecturer speaking down to kids... 3:14 I always liked those little wing vent windows. My 92 F150 has them. Newer trucks don't have them anymore. Damn shame, if you ask me. Everything is shit anymore, made to fall apart. Disposable. No quality control. No pride in craftsmanship. Just a plethora of mass-produced junk, aggressively mass-marketed to the couch potato for mass consumption. It's like Centrifugal Bumble Puppy. Except it's actually happening, and we're living in it, instead of reading about it in a book. It's scary shit if you think about it. It doesn't bode well for the human species.
I was restoring a trunk lid and that padding is a mess to take off
no robots here. all done by hand.
A evolução acontece mas precisa de um degrau para subir a um novo degrau...
My uncle and cousin retired from GM in Saginaw My cousin retired from Delphi just right before it was spun off
I never heard of Body By Fisher.
10:55.. that was dangerous as hell... you'd trip and get run over by the cars on the rails..
Great video but I don't understand why you refer Fisher Body Co. as a "...custom bodies for rich people..."
In the very early days of auto manufacturing, most auto makers didn't build their own bodies. Bodies were supplied by outside companies. Fisher was a custom body builder and they were contracted to build custom bodies by wealthy people for their Packards, Cadillacs, etc. Fisher was purchased by General Motors in the early teens when Durant was the president of GM and was on a buying spree to expand GM. Every GM car carried the 'Body by Fisher' tag which was located on the door sill plates on the cars of the 1940's and later or on the right side lower cowl on the 1930's and earlier cars. My 1975 Cadillac Sedan DeVille has a 'Body by Fleetwood' emblem on the sill plates. Fleetwood was another old body manufacturer. Fleetwood has also bought by GM and they built bodies exclusively for Cadillac. Eventually, neither name didn't mean anything because all of GM bodies were really being built by the GM body division. Budd was another body manufacturer and they built bodies for Packard, Ford and other car companies and was bought by Chrysler in the early 1950's. Hope this brief history was of some help!
@@packard5682 Thanks for that information. I had no idea about the connection with Fisher Body and GM. My 72 Malibu says body by Fisher.
All those guys are dead.
1950.
Fisher Body was disbanded in the 1980s.
The end of an era.
There's still a Fisher Body plant in West Mifflin, PA. Couple miles from what used to be Spear Chevy. Jerry Spear died in the plane crash with Don Yenko. (RIP both.) Any gearhead worth his salt knows who Don Yenko was. Last time I was by there has to have been more than ten years ago now, but it was still there then. My ex-wife's 86 Cutlass still had Fisher Body tags. Nowadays cars are all made of plastic and pot-metal. Junk.
@@CrazyBear65 I know, many of the cars that came out post 1988 lost the steel bumpers, metal lower body paneling and personal styling that made United States automobiles stand out from the competition. What also died with it, was the jobs and income those people manufacturing these automobiles and what followed was a loss in General Motors market share. People simply were startled and taken aback by the GM vehicles lacking individual styling that distinguished them as unique to their brand. It also did not help that GM just about completely abandoned the usage of rear drive vehicles after 1988.
My 87 Cavalier had the Fisher Body logo on it so it was 88 and later it was got axed
Где русский перевод ? And where is the Russian translation?
After watching this video in glad I got a 80 year old car
In the poetry of the images and string music is missing the sheer deafening noise and acrid smell of steel, welding and paint. 10:36 Imagine the state of these mens throats and lungs! these men didnt live long.
That type of work and cigarettes kept pension plans solvent.
I can tell this was from the 40s.
No, all of the cars are 1950 models.
I summarily and fully reject the right-wing notion that "the unions" did GM in. Instead, it was the greed and avarice of the manufacturing conglomerates, greedy for cheap foreign labor, which were the primary means of the downfall of American motorcar manufacturing.
You hit the nail on the head. (But greed and avarice are the same thing.) Greedy rich fascist bastards have fucked everything up. They are the root of just about every societal problem. Anyone who believes that Darth Trump is going to fix anything has to be delusional.
CrazyBear65 So the alternative is Leftist / Socialists who give everything to people who don’t deserve it.
It is a lot of things. It is not just GM. Californians started buying imports. Large manufacturers seem to have a disdain for Unions. Maybe the US over invested in Automobile manufacturing. Was it and is it really necessary for all of us to be driving vehicles? Again was it necessary to dismantle the street car system in major cities only to replace it with buses? When competition entered the market it cut into manufacturing profits, and sustaining the retirement programs (pensions) of former GM employees and future GM retirees was now a prospect of concern. To be fair to business owners, did Unions take into consideration the Japanese and German invasion of vehicle imports as reason to buckle down with US manufacturing and go to war with the Japanese and German manufacturing or did they continue expecting the same benefits and pay? Honestly, my first and only new car was Japanese, so I in turn contributed to the dismantling of American vehicle manufacturing in fear that American vehicles had questionable quality, but in truth if one is shrewd and discerning it is possible to buy well built American vehicles. In some ways, United States Americans gave a away the lot to imports in automobile manufacturing, textiles and electronics.
oliver rojas A lot of truth in what you said. My first new car, in 1978, was a Toyota. I was a mechanic at the time, and knew better than to buy an American car of the time. The fact is that now most so - called “ Foreign “ cars are actually built in this country, while most “ American “ cars are not. And even the cars that the big three build in this country are a collection of globally sourced components assembled here. In 1995 I purchased a new Ford Escort. I found out that it had a Mazda engine, a French transmission, and was assembled in Mexico. I drove it for 10 years and 220,000 miles, sold it locally, and saw it around town for another two years.
How many times did he say Fisher???
Safety my donkey , Zero Seat belt restraints in those day's & the Bodies were flying all over the place in Sudden impacts Sheet metal bodies & human like toddler's & the smaller children. Massive death & lives lost, i'll bet every Drunken year.
The unions have effectively done to GM what they did to British Leyland Motors in England. The UAW made GM a pension company instead of a car company. The main difference is that BL was sold to non-Engilsh car companies like Ford and BMW. GM is simply using American stimulus money to shut down factories here and open them in China and elsewhere.
70Kenny your a idiot, it was corporate greed that destroyed gm
Hey can I use a snippet or 2 of the video? I'm using it for a video project I'm doing for my internship. Not trying to profit from it, your response is important to me.
Gad, that is ugly but at least gm tried to build a good car back then.
They all did
Cars were much safer then. I was T-boned by a 60 mph driver that put a big dent in the door and I was still able to drive it home. This newer junk breaks in half at sight resulting in loss of life and total junk of the auto.
Absolutely! But Uncle Sam doesn't want folks to know that.
@@CrazyBear65 I believe that once the government started with the requirements of vehicles getting a certain amount of gas mileage the car companies went to junk ass plastic everywhere to make them lighter.
Body by fisher is long gone All the B body car's have body by fisher... A car the ride's on a full ladder frame not the junk unibodies built today.. Today's cars are garbage... GM or Mary Barra go back to building real cars and stop building SUV'S.
The Fisher Body plant still exists in West Mifflin, PA. not far from the US Steel Irvin Works. They still make vehicle bodies. Well, I reckon the cars aren't made out of steel anymore, they all have plastic parts holding them together, and airbags, and "rumple-zones"... They all look like plastic toys that were carved out of a bar of soap. But if you look on a 68 GTO, a 72 Cutlass, a 77 Gran Prix, a 79 Caprice, an 82 ElDorado... All GM vehicles, open the door and look at the aluminum strip on the rocker panel, and it will have a tag there that reads: "Body By Fisher" All the way up thru the 90s, at least. To be honest, I haven't looked on the newer ones. I wouldn't own a new vehicle, even if I won one. They're all shitboxes anymore. I'd sell it and keep driving old trucks.
You drive old trucks because that’s what you can afford...just barely.
I totally agree. I kept my 72 Chevelle. Don't listen to those who put us down for liking old cars. I would love to have a 62 Plymouth Valiant or Rambler American. No damned crazy computer stuff to go wrong. Cars of today all look alike. They resemble bumper cars at the carnival. Yuk!! I am glad that I am not the only one who loves old cars. We prefer them and it had nothing to do about what we can afford. Thanks!!!!
I agree the styling of cars after 88' was a shock in comparison to Fisher Body vehicles that had metal bumpers, metal trim, some remaining metal interior trim, and were rear wheel drive. It took some adjustment to get accustomed to the different proportions of the front drive vehicles with different overhangs and greater usage of plastic.
Great video but gotta say the orchestral soundtrack was totally over dramatic and annoying
Amazing how far America has declined in such a short time.
3:25 WTF are those robots???
The welders had hydraulic assist due to their weight, but were operated by workers.