How It's Made: 2014 Corvette

[Milton Fox]

Episode airs on the Science channel at 9 PM Central, Thursday, 2 Oct 2014

If you are bored they are running a marathon of How It's Made for Manufacturing week.

[ApexOversteer]

How It's Made isn't really good for cars. It's great for Golf clubs and roofing tiles and Marshmallows, but if you want the next best thing to an actual factory tour, you gotta go National Geographic and their show Mega Factories.

[Milton Fox]

This one is a full episode not just a short segment. Their Dream Cars series has been pretty good as well.

[snide]

I've seen first hand how the 2014s are made.
And the C6s. And the C5s.

[ApexOversteer]

Originally Posted by Milton Fox

This one is a full episode not just a short segment. Their Dream Cars series has been pretty good as well.

I've seen most of the Dream Cars episodes they've aired so far, and they're good for an overview of the process. I really liked the Wiesmann MF5 episode, because you never see that car mentioned over here in the states.

[CBonsall]

Originally Posted by ApexOversteer

I've seen most of the Dream Cars episodes they've aired so far, and they're good for an overview of the process. I really liked the Wiesmann MF5 episode, because you never see that car mentioned over here in the states.

why dont they attempt to sell them over here?

[Milton Fox]

Originally Posted by snide

I've seen first hand how the 2014s are made.
And the C6s. And the C5s.

That's good I wouldn't want you to miss the first half of The Secret Life of Cats airing on NG Wild at the same time!

[ApexOversteer]

Originally Posted by CBonsall

why dont they attempt to sell them over here?

Tiny maker, can't afford to homologate them for US market.

[Milton Fox]

From the NCM newsletter....

Corvette To Be Featured On Discovery Tonite

Bowling Green's iconic sports car will be highlighted on Discovery Channel's "How It's Made-Dream Cars" show tonite. A crew filmed for four days at the Corvette Plant, and one day at the Museum recently to create the program. The 30 minute show on the Corvette will air for the first time this evening, October 2, at 9 pm CST.

Other recent shows covering Corvette that you can still catch re-runs on are "Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy" on the History Channel, "Made in America" on the Travel Channel, and two different one-hour episodes of "Ultimate Factories" on National Geographic.

You can find more air dates for the new Discovery show on sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/how-its-made.

[RED-85-Z51]

It was good, it showcased how the process is mostly automated, the line workers dont do much more than push buttons, pull levers, guide the process...heaviest thing I saw handled by people was..the rear bumper, some cute chick in a purple shirt and tight jeans shared a buddy lift with some dude to carry the thing 8 feet to the car and snap it in place...

Damn that gal looked decent too...id rather look at that rear, than the rear of the car she was handling.

[99 pewtercoupe]

Originally Posted by ApexOversteer

I've seen most of the Dream Cars episodes they've aired so far, and they're good for an overview of the process. I really liked the Wiesmann MF5 episode, because you never see that car mentioned over here in the states.

I really liked the look of that car. Not something you would see every day and the performance was more than adequate

[Milton Fox]

Having seen the factories and the work stations at the other Dream Car plants - I can see how the Corvette is so much cheaper to efficiently assemble.

The rear lights - by themselves - was arresting!

You have been closing your hoods C5 to 7 incorrectly - all this time.

[Black94lt1]

Good show!

[Mike Mercury]

2014 Corvette

they mentioned the 8sp automatic; and when showing the seat installation... I thought I saw the lable on the clear plastic that says "2015 seat".

[DropTheTop]

I liked it, thanks for the heads up

[RED-85-Z51]

I found it hilarious when they showed the body panels being painted by the robots, then being baked at 260*....then it said "then a team of people inspect the fresly painted surfaces and repair any defects in the finish"....and it showed like 8 people feverishly sanding and buffing the newly painted parts due to all the defects.

I recall, same TV show, when they showed a Porsche being built..they used the same kind of painting technique...and afterwards, one person inspected the car..and he found one potential defect, he circled it..it then went to the next stop..where it was compound buffed, then it was inspected again...

If you need a team, and they are that busy on newly painted surfaces, something is wrong with your methodology...

[Mike Mercury]

Originally Posted by RED-85-Z51

If you need a team, and they are that busy on newly painted surfaces, something is wrong with your methodology...

If Porsche was trying to make 30,000 of a particular high-end model per year, they would need to do the same. It's all about keeping production times down to a minimum.

[DropTheTop]

^^ I thought that was ridiculous too. After thinking about it I figure it's either job security and they were just going through the motions, or they were all put there for the segment to make us think that they've really stepped up their QC for finishing.

If they REALLY do need all those people there, they may as well fecking wet sand that shit while they're at it.

[RED-85-Z51]

Originally Posted by DropTheTop

^^ I thought that was ridiculous too. After thinking about it I figure it's either job security and they were just going through the motions, or they were all put there for the segment to make us think that they've really stepped up their QC for finishing.

If they REALLY do need all those people there, they may as well fecking wet sand that shit while they're at it.

Exactly, if you are spot fixing 30% of the finish, just go ahead and do the rest of it...im guessing the rest of it isnt "perfect"....but maybe at best "passable"...

Charge a premium price..provide a premium product, dont half ass it...

[RED-85-Z51]

Originally Posted by Mike Mercury

If Porsche was trying to make 30,000 of a particular high-end model per year, they would need to do the same. It's all about keeping production times down to a minimum.

Porsche knows its limits...they wouldnt attempt to provide that kind of volume unless they could do it without compromising quality...Porsche is afterall a world class sports and supercar manufacturer, who gets respect from even the most snotty of critics...

GM...gets laughed at. Like on TopGear when they tested the ZR1....worked good for a couple days, then started falling apart...then it refused to start...you could deflect the rear fascia a couple inches with a finger....It just didnt scream "100,000 dollar super car"....performed well enough for sure, but...when you get up into that kind of price range, you need al ittle more fit and finish.