Rummaging around the far corners of the internet attic, I stumbled into a brochure for Swiss market 1967 Chevrolets. GM had an assembly plant in Biel from 1935 to 1975, and some 330k cars were assembled there over the decades. I mostly liked what they were doing there, but someone assembled this one a bit oddly.
I’ll explain, if I can:
European GM cars, as well as many others exported and/or assembled in other markets, had different specifications than the US market cars. As in HD suspension, brakes, different standard engines, as well as generally very well equipped with what would be options in the US, since they were quite expensive there, and competed against higher end cars like Mercedes, Peugeot, Citroen, etc.
In 1967, Chevrolet made disc brakes optional, which came with what we know as the beloved Rally wheel, a larger, vented wheel. Needless to say, the Swiss instantly made them standard equipment. Just one little problem: they couldn’t find a GM PR picture of the Impala with Rally wheels. The solution: cut and paste some in. But whoever did that really botched it. Unbelievable, really. The whole angle of the wheels are totally off.
But!
The have a genuine shot of the Malibu sedan wearing Rally wheels! Wow, does that make it look better, with those nice beefy ventilated wheels and tires. I’m assuming it was shot in Switzerland. It’s wearing the distinctive badge on the grille identifying it as Biel assembled.
And here’s a Camaro too, wearing Swiss plates. And the Biel badge on the grille.
But here’s the one that really surprised me, more than the fun house Impala:
A Chevy II Nova sedan with Rally wheels! What makes this one so surprising is that I cannot find any deference to disc brakes being available, at least in the US. (Update: disc were optional; 565 were ordered that way in ’67, so they were very rare.) But in the specifications for the Swiss version, it clearly states that it had front power disc brakes. And there’s a good explanation for that too:
GM Biel assembled the Chevelle, Chevy II and Camaro on site. But the Impala, Corvair (Update: some Corvairs were assembled in Biel, others were imported) and Corvette were imported from North American plants. Which may well explain why there were no shots of the Impala with Rally wheels available. And that shot of the Chevy II also does not look like it was taken in the US; that’s clearly a European style school. The same applies to the shots of the Chevelle and Camaro.
The specs for the cars are interesting too. The Impala came only with the 275 hp 327 (279 metric HP). The Chevelle was offered with the 230 six, the 283 and the SS coupe came with the 275 hp 327. In the US, it was strictly an SS396. The Camaro came with either 230 six, the 283 V8 (not offered in the US), the 210 hp 325, or the SS350. The Corvair came only in the 110 hp version. And the Corvette was offered with either the 300 hp 327 or the 390 hp 427.
Here’s the full brochure. You’ll note that the Swiss versions with the Rally wheels are paired with shots of US versions without them, because they apparently only shot the Chevelle and Nova locally.
Hilarious with those airbrushed-in Rally wheels; they look like some cheap JC Whitney accessories. So maybe the Swiss couldn’t get the strippo Bel Air with the Six that we had back in the day? (My brother tried to make it look cooler some years later by removing the dog dishes and jacking up the rear.)
Looks like they put the wheels on in reverse.
That Impala looks like it was outfitted with the optional gyroscope wheel covers.
Fascinating! I’m surprised that the PS ratings are in some cases more than the SAE power figures. But the Rally wheels really improve the stance of the cars. Paul wrote an article on how criminally under braked and under tired GM cars were at this time and that would have been deadly in hilly Switzerland. I’l bet these cars, modified as shown here, were pretty good to drive!
Actually, that 279 hp is not a DIN number, but a mechanical hp converted to a metric one (a metric hp = .9863 mechanical hp).
There was a DIN gross hp rating too, although not widely used. It too was dropped in the early ’70s.
Those aren’t retouched Rally wheels on the Impala. That’s the rare Alcoa forged aluminum wheel option, which was snuck into production by a GMC truck engineer who was temporarily assigned to Chevy. He finally got them into the pickup option book 10 years later.
This cannot be true.
And believe it I will not.
An Impala with truck wheels!?
The whole world’s gone to pot!
-The Poest
Really neat!
Same contemporary GM-style and also Biel-built, this 1965 Opel Kapitän A 2.6. If a Chevy was a bit too much…
More: http://ruylclassics.nl/ClassicCars/opel-kapitan-a-2-6-montage-suisse-febr-1965/?taal=EN
But a much better built car. When GM considered using an Opel Diplomat as the basis for the Cadillac Seville of 1975, the realized it was too precisely screwed together to be built in GM’s US plants. So they started with a Nova.
That Chevelle is nicely proportioned, better than my old ’67 2 door hardtop. The Nova looks vaguely Teutonic; I think it’s the headlights.
(Car Gurus picture of 1968 Mercedes-Benz 220)
Interesting that GM found it (apparently) profitable to manufacture 8,000 cars a year in Switzerland for 40 years. Today, a manufacturer cancels a sedan if it sells “only” 150,000 a year.
There’s a gulf of difference between an assembly plant and “manufacturing”. “Manufacturing” implies creating (and by nature, developing) all of the components that go into a car. Assembly plants just…assemble them. They do no manufacturing at all. The parts are all shipped to them, and a few parts might be locally sourced.
The whole reason foreign assembly plants came into being was because of the tariffs on imported cars, which were commonly very high. Plus shipping was cheaper. And commonly, labor was cheaper.
The reason car companies cancel sedans and other cars is because they don’t want to invest the huge R&D and capital expense of developing a successor to the current model, as well as the enormous marketing expense to support a model whose sales are dropping. Also, cars lines are only efficient to build if the volume is at a certain level; once it drops below that, the plant is not being utilized effectively, and it’s better to close it or build a different product there.
Please note that the Biel Assembly Plant was closed back in 1975. There’s no way that it would be operating in the modern world. Things were quite different back then.
I realize GM wasn’t stamping out fenders, that was written in haste. I just find it interesting that 8,000 annual units was worth one company’s time, while 100,000 annual units, using the current example of Mitsubishi’s sales in the U.S., may not be worth it to another company.
You’re comparing apples and Swiss cheese. 🙂
That was over half a century ago.Actually, this all started over a century ago with the ModelT. Ford set up plants all over the world, some of them in very small markets and with very low volume. Things were very different. The biggest of all was tariffs: many/most countries had very high import tariffs on cars, which essentially forced them to assemble cars locally.
You can’t believe how many assembly plants the big car companies had all over the world.
The global trading system really began to change in the ’60s – ’80s, and up. The WTO and other major trade agreements revolutionized things. And made little assembly plants irrelevant.
This has essentially zero to do with current changes in the composition of what car companies are building. Cars are only built now in very large plants, and unless they utilization factor is quite high (2 shifts minimum) it’s not going to be profitable.
Do you think they ran a night shift at Biel in Switzerland. No way! Night work in Europe was accepted very reluctantly and slowly, as it became necessary to compete globally.
It’s like comparing the chicken and eggs your grandparents bought at the corner grocery store. They came from a little farm just outside of town. Don’t even ask where your chicken and eggs at the supermarket come from.
FWIW, mass-produced chicken and eggs are much cheaper inflation adjusted than they were 100 or 60 years ago. But there’s a price to pay for that, environmentally and the impact on small farmers.
And cars are much cheaper, adjusted for inflation and purchasing power. Well, except maybe for the poor folks trying to get by on a minimum wage job.
Things are drastically different in all realms of economic life than they were 100 or 60 years ago.
One more thing: The Corvairs sold in Switzerland at the time competed in price with a Mercedes 220 six cylinder! These Chevrolets were all very expensive, and only private doctors and high paid professionals could afford them. The Impala was a rare high-end luxury car, like a big Mercedes 300 was in the US back then.
That’s why they could afford to assemble them locally; the prices were sky high. It’s a bit like shopping for all top-end organic free-range eggs, chicken and milk today.
This may explain a very weird 69 impala I saw a long time ago.
It was supposed to have started life as an “European Embassy Car”
Instrumentation was metric. Black on black 4 door hardtop.
But optioned as memory serves with a 327 with a three on the tree but steelie rims with tiny police hubcaps.
The standard I thought maybe because they were more common over there but now the wheels kind of make sense. Heavy duty possible police package suspension with heavy duty cop wheels.
The story of the GM Biel assembly plant is an interesting one. They really assembled any and all GM cars in there, including a lot of Vauxhalls, Rangers and Opels. Car #1 was a 1936 Buick. All cars were made to Swiss spec, which is very specific indeed. The Biel cars all have a little grille logo that says “GM Montage Suisse”. I remember seeing these on occasion (I lived in Switzerland for 5 years). The Biel / Bienne assembly hall is still there, now used by GM as their main import centre.
Even nowadays, the Swiss impose a number of tiny modifications on any car imported into the country. If they didn’t, they figure their auto supply would be cannibalized by their giant neighbours (Germany, France & Italy), who make a lot of the cars sold in Switzerland. The Swiss are fiercely protective about their auto supplier network, to a degree not commonly seen anywhere else these days. For instance, if you want to import a 1972 VW Beetle from Germany and get Swiss plates for it, you will need to bring the Beetle back to the exact Swiss specs for 1972 before they even consider giving you the plates.
The other one you might want to check out is AMAG “montage Schinznach” — they assembled VWs, Standards and a bunch of Chryslers.
Anyway, here’s a couple of GM-Suisse pics you guys might find interesting.
General Guisan’s 4-door convertible ’39 Buick was assembled in Bienne, it seems. The GM-Suisse logo is visible on the grille.
Pontiac, Chevrolet & Vauxhall at the Biel assembly hall, 1950
The 50,000th car (a Vauxhall Victor) in 1957
Production numbers, 1936-75
(Not sure where the Ranger marque is included here — probably under Opel)
And there was myself, about to Google “Swiss GM plant”, then, with even less effort than that tiresome business of pushing several buttons, I read further down and voila, myself is Informed. Thankyou, Dr T. The effort may have done me in. (Mind, I DID have to Google your recommended Schinznach et al, but at least had the reserve energy to do so, and fascinating it was. Still, please don’t offer self-serve second helpings in future, it’s all too much, and now I must lie down. The fact that it is lockdown hereabouts and I so haven’t yet got up is unimportant, and anyway, a digression on a digression which ends here, save to say that fellow CCérs should also Google Schinznach themselves whether they are lying or standing, as it not a flattened veal-based variation one may have initially thought it to be but the name of a town and, indeed, another Swiss plant of cars as promised).
This is yet another example, as if needed, of learning something new every day.
And opens the opportunity for me to say that I bet these GM’s ran like clockwork, as someone had to.
(No, not cuckoo clocks, Swiss watches, you fool, albeit, yes, they did try the former, but they found that the driver’s soon tired of being thrown in and out the driver’s door on the hour).
The Opel Diplomat was also available with a 327 specially modified for autobahn use. Could the Swiss Chevys have used the same engine?
Swiss autobahns have 120 km/h (about 75 mph) speed limits so they weren’t far out of line with pre-double-nickel interstates, but Germany was right next door and everything sold in Europe was set up to be driven there.
I noticed the Camaro standard sport coupe has the standard front grille with the round park lamps, but also has the Rally Sport small square front pearl lamps below the front bumper. I wonder why? Also, the picture of the Chevelle Super Sport coupe is missing the unique SS hood and grille with SS emblem.
I wonder why?
Because they’re made in Switzerland. For Switzerland. With different specifications.
Well, I understand some things may be different, but two sets of park lamps seems odd. Unless it was a mistake or some government mandate.
Not a mistake. The Swiss don’t go in for mistakes very much. 🙂
They did have unique lighting requirements, which undoubtedly explains it.
Oops. Small square PARK lamps not pearl. Stupid autocorrect.
Rally wheels look really strange paired with whitewalls, especially on that Nova.
That detail shot of the retouched front wheel makes me dizzy, my brain knows the wheel can’t be sitting that way but my eyes say it is,
Looking at the brochure in more detail, I think the Corvair was also locally screwed together. The sedan in the brochure has Swiss plates (Canton of Vaud) and the GM Montage Suisse badge, just like the Chevelle and the Camaro.
The Impala’s “Swiss plates” are clearly just as badly photoshopped as the wheels, and it doesn’t have the Montage Suisse thing. Same for the Corvette and the Camaro SS, for instance — those are not locally assembled. Some Corvettes were apparently put together in Biel, once upon a time, but probably not by 1967.
More info on Swiss-made Corvairs: http://www.corvairkid.com/chvairs-2.htm
After Nader’s book in ’65, there were myriad law suits against GM, but the most bizarrely ill-conceived came in salty Michigan in late ’68 over these so-called “Swiss Corvairs”.
Suing for nervous shock and general humiliation, the buyers had supposedly been “misled” into expecting their Chevs to remain sweet and more-ish like the most famous Swiss product, but several winters had ofcourse reduced their cars to a resemblance of the next most-famous product of that land, the eponymous cheese.
The judge threw the case out, and the attorney into rehab.
(See Spong v. General Motors, 682 NW 2d 74 Mich. Crt App, 1969)
Yes, some Corvairs were locally assembled (CKD) and others were imported complete (SUP). The brochure states which models were which, and the article you linked confirms that.
I have a friend who back in the 80’s owned a 1967 Chevy Nova station wagon. The car had the 230 6 cylinder, Powerglide automatic, power steering and was well optioned for the time even having a power operated tailgate window. The car also had front disc brakes and Rally wheels. The brake calipers were the 4 piston Delco-Moraine type used on period GM cars, and since the 1967 and older Chevy II/Nova used a unique steering knuckle I doubt the brakes came off any other car. Could disc brakes have been a ’67 only option on the second generation Chevy II/Nova?
I just found a detailed option list for the ’67 Chevy II. Disc brakes were available. And all of 565 of them came with discs, so your friend’s wagon was definitely out of the ordinary.
Thanks for the information, I suspected at the time it was a rare car. I believe the car was eventually restored by a Nova enthusiast.
That’s very interesting. I bet they had no more than one assembly line – which suggests that these cars were so similar in construction that they could be built on the same line. One sausage, three sizes.
I can’t tell if that’s a wraparound backlite on the Nova, or just a lighting effect. Any ideas?
My idea is for you to look at the other side C pillar, through the inside of the car, which clearly has no wrap-around window. 🙂
They added a bit of trim to the Swiss assembled Nova’s C pillar. Putting in a wrap around window would have been impossible, as these cars were assembled from kits with the body panels sent from the US factories. Changing that roof panel significantly would have been very expensive.
Until I enlarged and zoomed in, I thought the Impala body was sitting on a ’66 Toronado chassis!
I’ve been involved in print production for over 35 years. Regarding the Swiss reputation for precision, I’m amazed that this gaffe was not caught in proof reading.