JohnZ wrote:
The extended 69 production and the delay of introduction of the '70 Camaro was not purposeful, nor was it related to labor problems; it was late because the quarter panel draw dies failed during final die tryout and had to be rebuilt from scratch. Fisher Body had lots of troubles drawing the 1970 quarter panels without wrinkles and splits. They attempted to correct the problems by modifying the draw dies during final tryout but the problems got worse instead of better. Fisher finally had to redesign/rebuild the draw dies, which delayed the launch by 4-5 months. Chevrolet decided to extend the 1969 model, which created a wild scramble, as this meant extending part supplier contracts for the '69 (suppliers had already committed their facilities to other business), finding alternate capacity for '69 parts, etc. The PR department attempted to spin the delay in a different direction for public consumption as GM never publicly admitted any internal problems or failures, especially within Fisher Body, its biggest manufacturing Division, with the biggest tooling budget. But the delay of the 1970 Camaro was a black eye for Fisher Body Die Engineering, as it was the first production launch delay that was ever laid at their feet.
Ed
