<VV> Fisher Body input (no Corvair)

[Mark Corbin]

>From what I know of the Monza ("H-special" body), the first year ('75)
models had a very high tunnel in the floorpan, due to the "crankshaft" in
the rotary being higher than a piston engine. Subsequent years had lower a
tunnel in the floor pans.

My personal memory of the car was of the style change parts in the dies for
the formal roof coupe. That body had either a large window or an opera
window available. In order to change from one to the other, the scrap chute
for the window punchout had to be removed in order to access the attach
bolts. The time I was called to do a style change on them, I couldn't get
the scrap chute's attach bolt to screw into the hole. A fellow diemaker
took the screw and a hammer and drove it in like a nail! LOL I can't
imagine the fit it must have given the next person who had to style change
that die.

BTW, the late '70's Monza gave rise to the bumper sticker "I own a REAL
Monza", if you've ever seen one. I feel like making a similar stickers for
my REAL '84 Impala (to counter the current psudo-Impala/major appliance
front driver) and for my REAL '84 Silverado Suburban [to counter all those
cheap (pickup) Silverado-wannabe's]. Amazing how the auto companies are so
willing to cheapen a nameplate!

-Mark

> [Original Message]
> Subject: Re: <VV> Fisher Body input WAS GM Wankles
>
> The 1975 cars are pretty different from 1976+ cars... and the differences 
> are attributed to the aborted rotary as they were not necessary for the
V8. 
> Much more extensive than the hood inner (which I don't think changed at
all) 
> and had more to do with the cradle, firewall, and trans hump.
>
> If the Monza was "designed" for the V8, I hope they fired the engineer
that 
> decided that having the ability to change 6 of the 8 plugs was
sufficient. 
> ;-)
> Bill
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <kenpepke at juno.com>
> Subject: Re: <VV> Fisher Body input WAS GM Wankles
>
> >
> > Fisher Body produced almost all the car bodies for GM and. like the 
> > Corvair, the Vega was no exception.  The Mazda rotary engine was the
talk 
> > of all the engineering departments as had been the Corvair flat six. 
The 
> > Corvair engine was a WOW but there were big questions with the rotary
as 
> > it had failed to meet GM testing standards miserably in all categories
so 
> > the prospects did not look good.  GM has never been known for sitting 
> > around waiting for answers so FB Body Engineering designed and released 
> > parts specific for rotary engine application and FB Processing sent
tool 
> > design orders to FB Die Design ... but, most, if not all, were 'Design
but 
> > do not build' status.  There were not many parts and the differences,
with 
> > the exception of the hood inner, were minor.  Body testing was done
using 
> > parts built with 'soft tooling' in those days so it is not likely any 
> > actual rotary engine body parts were ever released into production. 
The 
> > 'Monza' cars were design specific to allow th
> > e use of a small V8 so the rotary engine would have fit in the engine 
> > compartment like a pea fits in a box car :-)
> > Ken P
>