Colour FC factory pic

[customFC]

A rare colour factory pic showing FC sedans in an unfinished state. Taken at Dandenong, these may have been cars destined for assembly plants in other states.
Another great pic from the National Archive site that we can thank Shayne for unearthing.

Regards
Alex

[robbzfc58]

very nice shot alex
body colour subframes??
        cheers trev

[HAD 708]

Another good one Alex and Shayne interesting as Rob mentioned about the Sub frame and how about the color sprayed rear door handle did they put 2 sets on during production or just clean them up???
Brett

[mcl1959]

This is a really unusual shot.
I dont think these cars are for assembly in other plants as they have subframes hence they have Melbourne stamped chassis numbers.  CKD cars were shipped with no subframes attached.  Looks more like GMH had a shortage of panels and had to store the cars outside.
Strange how all the cars have white bodies, except maybe the 9th car down which looks grey.  Also the brown cars on the end appear to be the only ones as well, as all the cars after them that can be seen are grey flash on both the left and the right.
Also I dont think the door handles are painted, its just the reflection of the paint in the chrome.
Ken

[Blown_FC]

Very interesting.....one could assume that they must have also had the motors in place, as I can't see any other reason why every one has it's front end covered up ?

Any ideas ?

mark

[Shayne]

Ken's theory about a shortage of panels sounds feasible, although when the panels arrive, all the cars will have to be carried back inside & placed back where they were removed from the assembly line- why wouldn't they put the wheels etc on & add the panels 'off assembly line' when they turn up?  

I also assume that the engine must be in the car, otherwise, why bother covering the engine bay?

It's a pity the photo caption in the archive didn't have more information!  At least it gives us lots of room for conjecture.

[fc4kiwi]

great photo
You noted that the front subframes are painted, in the pic.
When I got my FC it too was painted in body colour I didn't give it a second thought, come to think of it.
My car was a one owner when i got it and the old fellow said it had never been in a crash or had any repaints, also seen a EH painted body colour around this area.
Maybe they were painted for export  to NZ?

[RET]

As far as the orderliness of the cars goes (that Ken pointed out), I guess it makes sense that the cars would be put out there in the yard in more or less the same order they came off the line.  And it would be sensible to do 4 tan cars, 12 grey/white, 6 red/white, 10 blue/blue etc than 1 tan, 1 grey, 1 red, 1 blue, 1 red, 1 gray etc etc.

Great photo, btw.

cheers
RET

[FCwagon]

Just wondering about the shortage of guards theory and whether there would be a gamble that the next batch of paint to squirt on the guards would have been an identical match. This might account for the reason they're all the same colour & they put the remainder of the paint aside.
Wheels wouldn't be fitted if they were going back on the line because trollies were used for the non automated sections and wheels were near to the last things fitted. If the front line of cars is the same as the back, it looks like about 40 of 'em there. How many days production is that? Wouldn't be much.

[mcl1959]

There are no rear axles at all either as far as I can see.  I agree with Leigh that they came off the line where the supply ran out and will go back on the line when the parts arrive.
Probably only a days production here.
I wonder though at the point of the photograph.  Is it of importance, or just the company phootographer liked the picture?
I wonder whether it was a common occurence or the significance of the photo is that this was not very common at all.  I know it is certainly an undesireable occurence.
Ken