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When I was a kid, growing up in St. Louis in the late-1950s, we'd ride our bikes to the huge Chevrolet plant in mid September to peek through the fabric draped fencing, hoping to get a look at the upcoming model cars, Corvettes and trucks. Lots of times, there'd be rail cars with A.O.Smith frames on sidings, blocking our view. I thought it odd because all I knew of the company were the water heaters sold by my father's plumbing supply business. But, later on I'd find out that they made many things including my 1967 Corvette's body, assembled (including finished interior) in their Iona, Michigan factory, with an "A" in the vehicle number to differentiate it from the St. Louis assembled bodies which had an "S." GM contracted with AOSmith to build approximately forty percent of Corvette bodies to keep up with demand for the 1965-67 Sting Ray models. The AOSmith bodies would be stored in the basement of the Corvette plant for seamless integration with the bodies produced locally, all of them on AOSmith frames.