Re: How'd they do it?

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2014/3/30 17:03:59

Thanks for the information that included the reference to Mitchell-Bentley. I was previously familiar with their work with all of the Big Three when it came to relatively low volume station wagon bodies, both wood and steel. I first came across the company when they produced the beautiful 1957 Buick Cabellero four door hardtop station wagon bodies.

Thirty-five years ago I bought my 1967 Corvette coupe which has an A.O. Smith body, the company that took over from Mitchell-Bentley in the early Sixties. Depending on the model year, A.O.Smith built and fully trimmed about half of the 1965-7 Corvettes and allegedly, their quality was a bit better than the Body by Chevrolet (no Fisher for Corvettes) ones. No matter which company produced the bodies, all were finally assembled in St. Louis. I was unaware of M-B producing the Caribbeans or the Panthers.

According to the Ward book on the fall of Packard, the majority of new owner complaints, if they had them, was over the bodies on their cars, not the mechanical issues. When Briggs sold Packard on the economies of farming out body production to them with the new 1941 Clippers, the die was cast. Soon, after the war, Briggs wanted more money to produce the bodies than the Packard Board thought they would have spent, had they retained the ability at East Grand. Unfortunately, the space and tooling had already been re-dedicated to functions other than body production.

I looked up Mitchell-Bentley on Google and was surprised by the size and diversity of their operations, just as you have noted. Ten thousand workers at their high point. But as the builders of the Mark II Continentals, then they have my unlimited respect.