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The Chevy Vega - '74 GT
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05-12-2016, 05:38 PM
onehundred80
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Re: The Chevy Vega - '74 GT
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Originally Posted by
rush549
Here is something I'll bet youv'e never seen.
The photo's are of the Vert-A-Pac shipping system General Motors came up with to ship the Chevrolet Vega back in the 1970s? Developed along with Southern Pacific Railroad, GM was able to double the amount of Vega models it could ship by packing them into the unique storage cars vertically.
At the time, rail cars could fit 15 vehicles each, but Chevrolet was able to lower shipping costs by making it possible to ship 30 Vegas per rail car, in turn allowing the price of the Vega to remain as low as possible. Each rail car had 30 doors that would fold down so that a Vega could be strapped on, and then a forklift would come along and lift the door into place. All the cars were positioned nose down, and since they were shipped with all of their required fluids, certain aspects had to be designed specifically for this type of shipping, including an oil baffle in the engine, a special battery and even a re-positioned windshield washer reservoir.
I missed this interesting thread the first time around, quite an amazing sight to see.
As a small aside, I think that there are only 10 doors, each door has three cars on it. The forklift can be seen to be lifting three cars and the doors only have full length gaps every three cars. I stand to be corrected but the gaps between doors look to be proof of this.
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