Mark Macey wrote:
I just met an elderly English gentleman who related an
interesting story. He did not see this firsthand, but
it was told to him by a chap who worked at the Vauxhall
factory in the late 1940's. He claimed that (some or
all?) completed car bodies were dipped in a saltwater
bath and stacked outside to dry prior to painting.
Evidently they wanted to make sure the corrosion process
was started off properly, and within 5 years most of
these cars were shot! Has anyone else ever heard this
tale? Quite the opposite of Triumph's built in rust
prevention system!
Let's face it, Vauxhalls probably did start to rot out a bit earlier
than some of their contemporaries - but so did most of everything else
made in Europe at te time. Fiat and Lancia seemed to have outstanding
skills in in-building premature rust. I well remember visiting the
Pressed Steel plant in Oxford where bodies were made for many UK
manufacturers - including Jaguar and Rolls Royce. The most profound
memory is of all completed but unpainted bodies being fully immersed
in a bath of mild alkaline to remove grease and other contaminants.
They were then washed in a similar fashion in "clean" boiling water
and passed on overhead conveyors through hot air driers in which the
bodies hung vertically first from the nose and then from the tail. The
final treatment was to again immerse the hot but "dry" body in a
mixture of hot grease and lanolin to protect from corrosion on an
open-air truck to the manufacturer where the cleaning process started
all over again before painting. Why Pressed Steel never went the whole
hog to a body in white must surely be one of life's mysteries but I
suppose the cars were only expected to have a five to eight year life
expectancy, so wy waste more money in better protection?
Something of a miracle that they've lasted as long as they have. I'm
fairly certain this was never the original plan!
Jonmac
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