Tomorrow ME’S Built Within BGA

[John]

Already 40 mid engine IVERS have been made within the Plant. However, the C7-building, assembly line employees, who are working Monday-Thursdays, 10 hour days, making 116 C7’s per day, are not yet building the ME’s.

However, the ME Integration Development Team (IDT) — the ME team with roughly half of its staff based in Warren, MI, the other being made up of those BGA specially chosen ME project employees, are building ME’s on very isolated Fridays. Could tomorrow (this Friday) be one of those days? There is a good probability that the answer is “yes,” as follows:

A schedule I learned about while in BG at the April National Corvette Museum BASH, has tomorrow as the next day for building the ME’s by the Integration Development team. Of course, that scheduled date was shared with me three months ago, and like all GM schedules, are always subject to change. However, in late April, the person predicted two dates for ME’s being build this summer, e..g, July 13th and August 10th.

During the week of July 13th, certain information was separately shared that indicated that something was happening at the Plant.

Last week, I received an additional confirmation (second source) that ME’s were assembled within BGA on July 13th, so if the schedule is still on track, tomorrow, August 10th, will be the next round of ME assembly.

BTW, for those who are still stuck on that oft-repeated, old and incorrect verse that there the will be second assembly line built, one for the 2020 FE’s , another new one for the ME’s, as there is not at this time a second assembly line, and since both FE’s and ME’s are now able to be build on the same, single assembly line re-constructed during last fall’s 13 week shutdown, that wrong refrain of two different assembly lines shall finally be declared as “double-E’d”, e.g., erroneous and extinct.”

Wouldn’t we all love to be hiding in the Plant’s rafters this Friday (August 10th), looking downward at the ME’s being assembled! Too bad, that is not a possibility.

[OnPoint]

Good to hear. Moving closer and closer to production reality, one step at a time. That indicates to me that while there no doubt has been tweaks/changes the need for which testing has manifested, there hasn't been any "show stoppers".

Good news.

[xXColorShiftXx]

What Im honestly wondering is, the reasoning behind BGA having such a dramatic change to its factory with all the added "buildings'' "paint booths" that this is in fact a assembly line for 2 different cars? lets face it GM would be digging its own grave killing off a V8 front engine car that we all are used to and Love, to jump straight into something like a ME. what Im thinking is the plant upgrades are obviously for the addition of the ME while having room for a "C8" front engine car very soon to be made as well. this ME car will be called a "Corvette Zora" in my opinion and be its own generation car now. like a Z1,Z2,Z3 Etc.what do you guys think?

[Fasttoys]

What Im honestly wondering is, the reasoning behind BGA having such a dramatic change to its factory with all the added "buildings'' "paint booths" that this is in fact a assembly line for 2 different cars? lets face it GM would be digging its own grave killing off a V8 front engine car that we all are used to and Love, to jump straight into something like a ME. what Im thinking is the plant upgrades are obviously for the addition of the ME while having room for a "C8" front engine car very soon to be made as well. this ME car will be called a "Corvette Zora" in my opinion and be its own generation car now. like a Z1,Z2,Z3 Etc.what do you guys think?

To soon to tell. I know the corvette team have their hands full with the development of the new ME. Any new FE if they go in that direction will not come out till after 2021. That would mean the FE C7 had a 7 year production run which is in line with GM.

[John]

Let’s step back please, for actual walk throughs the massive new paint shop has confirmed that there is not any room within it for a second assembly line. In the old paint shop, for example, there were two paint ovens, each 40’ long, whereas in the new paint shop there are three paint booths, each 120 feet long.

GM has finally learned its Corvette overproduction actions of the past two generations, their earlier massively messing up by adding a second shift during the C6 era, and then almost 3 years of total overtime the beginning years of the C7 — now having to put $6,000 flex cash to sell C7’s (exception the 192/month produced ZR1’s).

GM has finally “right sized production for an entire generation” (quoted words from Kai Spande, BGA Plant Manager), by reducing, even with “firewall overtime,” (again Kai’s words), max annual BGA production capacity to just 33,000 units per year.

It is further believed that next year we will continue to see front engine C7’s produced — along side the ME’s.

Might we see in 2022 (for safety and other reasons the C7 can not be made after 2021), a C7.5 FE? Many believe that will be happening!

[Plasboy]

Anyone in Bowling Green able to drive by and see if there are enough employee cars there to look like this is happening.

[John]

I wish it were that simple. If so, someone could also bring out the drones.

The asssembly line workers are not there on Fridays, for they work Monday through Thursdays only; they will not be involved in building of the ME at this time (and not for many more months — for that is solely now the work of Development Integration Team now (which is probably around 75-80 total folks). The Plant is so big that those people could part in so many places without drawing attention, and the admin staff, numbering around 175-200, work five ro six days a week, that I doubt “counting cars” today would help.

[JB]

Im still not convinced tje corvette will be both a front mid engine and a rear mid engine..

i ve certainly been wrong many times in life so itll be interesting to see what actually occurs..

[jagamajajaran]

One thing I am absolutely certain of...there are not two separate vehicle assembly lines in the plant.

[John]

Thank you Jag! You are well connected to Corvette inner workings, and so nice to read your confirmation comment.

I helped pay my way through college by working on a Ford assembly line, where in the mid 1960’s I was helping assemble, back to back, trucks, buses, vans, pickups and Ford sedans; hence, why I keep having trouble with folks insisting that two different types of Corvettes can not be assembled nose-to-tail.

Thank you again for your explicit statement.

[jagamajajaran]

You're welcome, John. And your experience definitely contributes to the possibility of there only needing to be one line. And there is only one line.

[Frenzy36]

Thank you Jag! You are well connected to Corvette inner workings, and so nice to read your confirmation comment.

I helped pay my way through college by working on a Ford assembly line, where in the mid 1960’s I was helping assemble, back to back, trucks, buses, vans, pickups and Ford sedans; hence, why I keep having trouble with folks insisting that two different types of Corvettes can not be assembled nose-to-tail.

Thank you again for your explicit statement.

Wow John, That's awesome you worked for Ford. Where did you work? I must be younger than you as I worked at the Plant in Chicago making the Taurus and Sables during the 80's. The plant at the time was implementing automated robots and we were having union problems and there were many strikes and political intervention at that time. I was amazed at the time how many cars we used to put fork lifts through and crush. If there was the slightest flaw it was less expensive for them to crush it and make another one than to repair whatever the case was. We could not even purchase them at a discounted rate.

[John]

Worked at the Mahwah, NJ plant as a summer fill in while regular employees went on vacation; then I returned to college each September.

[vetteb_96]

Tadge was on a plane tonight headed to BG. More builds tomorrow.

[John]

He was not driving his ZR1? Must have been a time critical meeting, for at the ZR’1s 212 MPH, he could have made BG in just 2 hours, 16 minutes (all 478 miles).