MiningmanYikes, all that for a Vega. My mom had one, borrowed it one afternoon, that car barely made it up a hill. She also bought a Ford Pinto at one time. Good grief. It's been Toyotas ever since. Remember the Vega enthusiasts in the movie 'Contact'? I'm sure there is a Pinto enthusiast club as well somewhere out there. PT Barnum was right on the money, not sure if he went far enough if folks celebrate these things.
My mom had one, borrowed it one afternoon, that car barely made it up a hill. She also bought a Ford Pinto at one time. Good grief. It's been Toyotas ever since.
Remember the Vega enthusiasts in the movie 'Contact'? I'm sure there is a Pinto enthusiast club as well somewhere out there.
PT Barnum was right on the money, not sure if he went far enough if folks celebrate these things.
The Vega was a cluster from the very inception of the idea. GM needed a new manufacturing plant to build it - The Lordstown Assembly Plant was constructed for it in a no expense spared CRASH construction project to have the plant producing cars YESTERDAY. 24/7/365 construction to get the plant built and into production. The Vert-A-Pacs, I believe, were a GM idea to be able to ship more automobiles in fewer rail car loads. If my memory is still intact, I think 20 or 22 Vegas were shipped per rail car load. Recall seeing a Freight Bill at the Newton Falls, OH Agency for a Vert-A-Pac from Lordstown to California in 1968 - $4800 in 1968 dollars - I was earning less than $24 a day at that time working for the B&O.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Yikes, all that for a Vega.
Even if the fluids didn't leak out, the plugs that were supposed to keep them in place were in tough places to get at, and were sometimes not removed or opened properly. The dead Vega three blocks from the dealer was a staple of 1970s car humor. The bottom line with the VertaPacks was that the Vega was a sales bomb, and the VertaPack cars weren't tall enough to handle any other models GM had at the time. Add to this that loading and unloading required the cars to sit about 60 feet apart on parallel tracks, so any efficiency in transport was lost in handling. SP also tried the StackPack, a container holding four or six vehicles, but it required special handling equipment which wasn't usually available in vehicle loading yards.
The Vega was supposed to have been modified to prevent fluids from leaking, among other things a baffle was installed inside the engine to stop oil from leaking out through the No. 1 cylinder. No idea how well the changes actually worked in the real world.
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/12/vert-pac-unusual-way-to-transport.html?m=1
A downside of the Vert-A-Pac was that it could not be used to haul anything else, so the return move was always empty. As time went on and auto assembly spread out across the continent (to say nothing of imports) backhauls have become common.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
I remember the "vertapacks," even though I did not remember the name. I had not thought much about them, and I am not surprised that they were not a success--cars are designed to stay almost level and not to be tilted as these were. Apparently the vertapack designers did not get with the automobile designers to make certain that nothing would leak out when the cars were tilted?
Johnny
ALL:
I viewed an early 1970's General Motors video on their auto logistics and how the computer aided them trace railcars. Great to seen the old cars.
The SP and GM pioneered the use of a "verta-pack"" auto rack. Vega's were loaded into specially constructed racks and then a fork lift tilted that "pocket" into the vertical postion for transport.
I remember reading that the concept was good, but the various fluids in the automobile did not stay where they were supposed to be and the idea was abandoned. Also, enclosed auto tracks were coming into vogue due to damage during transit.
Anyone shed more light on this.
Ed Burns
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