The rattle never to be found?

[alpayed]

When I removed the fins from my recently restored 60 Hawk I found these inside the LH fin.

The fin looked as if it had never been removed at any stage.
Some naughty person may have put them in there on the assembly line??
I wonder if they had the previous owners wondering where the rattle was.
Allan

[Mrs K Corbin]

have you checked for signature or initials on the fin, silverware, etc. There's a story there to be sure.

[57pack]

While working for our local Pontiac dealer back in the early 1960's we had a new 1963 Catalina with a thunk coming from the passenger side door area.
During a test drive it was determined the noise was coming from the rocker panel area. Put the car up on the lift and opened the rocker panel from below along the seam. Inside we found a piece of 3/4 inch steel rod with a note attached.
"Bet this drove you nuts"
Boredom on the assembly line?

[Commander Eddie]

Hmm. Somebody did not get a raise. There may have been a wife who could not figure out why her silverware was disappearing.

[Brizzleblue]

My Dad had a new (ish) Ford Corsair when I was a teenager. Fantastic car, but one day I got home to find my Dad had stripped out the rear right hand axle. When asked why he said that every time he turned left there was a knocking sound on the right rear. I wish he had looked in the trunk first because there was an empty oil can rolling around in the spare wheel well. All I can say is that he wasn't happy when he found out. In fact he wasn't happy for the rest of the week.

[karterfred88]

Probably why Japanese cars took over the market, their workers weren't allowed to eat while working. Still better than the rotting sandwiches stuffed in doors before putting on the door trim--saw more than one of those while trying to diagnose the aroma that lingered on after the smell of the "new" plastic wore off! Hmm 1963--wasn't that a UAW vs. Ford year?? GM workers should have been happy.

[R3 challenger]

A pair of vise grips was found hanging on the the underside of a rear fender of the 1964 Cruiser I bought from Butch Lundstedt, apparently placed there and then forgotten by a Hamilton assembly line worker. (the car was on the cover of the December 2016 TW). Butch sold the car new to an older couple from his dad's Studebaker dealership and bought it back from their estate several years later. Butch was the only mechanic who ever worked on the car until he sold it to me last summer. He found the vise grips after owning the car for several years; it had about 36,000 miles at the time. He still has them, although they were a little rusty, having been exposed to the elements under that fender. At least it didn't rattle!

George

[Greenstude]

In the 1970s, a friend of mine was shop foreman at a Cadillac dealer. One rattle turned out to be a soft drink bottle trapped behind a welded-in panel.

[8E45E]

I mentioned about the tack hammer my neighbor found in his 1965 Chrysler here: http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.c...or-Accessories

Craig

[BobPalma]

You know, we laugh at these things, and I'm sure a majority of them are true...but they testify as to why, for example, the entirety of General Motors today can't even approach the market penetration Chevrolet alone had in the 1950s.

For those of us "into" cars, it's amusing...but it wasn't amusing to the average car buyer as the 1960s morphed into the 1970s malaise and Hondas and Toyotas and such became perceived as being "better" cars...and, in fact, were to many people because customers grew increasingly wary of this sort of irresponsible nonsense in the least..if not outright, intentional sabotage.

And before I'm accused of piling on, those who know me best will testify to my remaining supportive of our domestic automobile/truck industry long after many had washed their hands of "The Big Three," never to return. (Of course, in 70 years of occupying the planet, I've only bought five new vehicles, non of which could be construed as an "import:" 1975 AMC Pacer, 1979 El Camino Conquista, 2002 Dodge Dakota Sport Quad Cab, 2008 Impala LS, and our current 2016 Ford Escape SE. 'Still have the Dakota, too; it's barely got 44,000 miles on it!) BP

[8E45E]

You know, we laugh at these things, and I'm sure a majority of them are true...but they testify as to why, for example, the entirety of General Motors today can't even approach the market penetration Chevrolet alone had in the 1950s.

For those of us "into" cars, it's amusing...but it wasn't amusing to the average car buyer as the 1960s morphed into the 1970s malaise and Hondas and Toyotas and such became perceived as being "better" cars...and, in fact, were to many people because customers grew increasingly wary of this sort of irresponsible nonsense in the least..if not outright, intentional sabotage.

Yes, some of it IS true.

Remember, GM admitted their inadequacies in in the 1980's in the form of, first, the NUMMI joint-venture plant in California by adopting Japanese 'kaiszen' of 'continuous improvement' by building Chevrolet-branded Toyotas, and second, the Saturn brand which was to revolutionize how well labor and management could get along together to produce a 'better product' in a brand new factory.

Today, the NUMMI plant is building Teslas, and Saturn is no more.

Craig

[dpson]

What would be really ironic if one of the spoons in the Hawk fin were from the Studebaker cafeteria.

[HAWK64]

What would be really ironic if one of the spoons in the Hawk fin were from the Studebaker cafeteria.

Dan,
Do you mean a spoon like this?

[HAWK64]

I remember doing the pre delivery service on a RHC '64 Hawk we had imported from South Bend during 1964. I removed the lower back seat to install the Factory carpets & I found a spare new arm rest the assemblers did'nt bother to pick up. I actually purchased that car a few years later which I still own today. I replaced the worn driver's arm rest some years later with the "discovered" one.

[nebraska stude]

In 1970 the local Ford dealer had a long time mechanic quit, after finally finding a rattle. He was at it for weeks and the owner was not happy. Personally don't know why it took so long. Whiskey pint, half full, hanging inside a back door, suspended with a string. Written on the bottle, How did it take you to find this? In 72, same dealership I test drove a new Galaxie. Didn't notice it on the drive, but when I got back inside, did notice it had a brown Mercury steering wheel, the interior was green. Made one wonder what else they goofed up.