Photo of Vibe in The Body Shop

[Petervisor]

The first 2 photos show a Corolla, but the last photo is a Vibe. They're built on the same production line:http://crunch22.blogspot.com/2....html

[Petervisor]

opps... All three photos are Vibe...

[scherry2]

Peter,where ya been? we wondered if you fell of the face of the earth, well california anyway. hows life at NUMMI.? keepin busy? any hints on any redesign yet?

[Petervisor]

Schery2, I was off work for a year with a personal disability (eye sight). I'm back at work now in the Quality Control Dept for Tacoma trucks, but I'm really more interested in the cars.The passenger dept is working every other Saturday to keep up with demand for Vibes and Corollas. I'm as curious as you are about the redesign. You probably know more than I do. I don't even know if there will be a Pontiac Vibe version of the next Corolla. Given Toyotas stated goal of increasing North American production volume, they might decide they won't produce a Vibe. And given GM's financial position, they may sell their half of the factory to Toyota. But that's just my speculation. I haven't heard a thing.

[NSimkins]

Thanks for the pics! You mention that the welding has to be done by hand now, why is that?

[Petervisor]

Robots weld the shell of the cars together. These large panels are uniformly stacked for the 'bot to pick up. But most of the smaller parts are welded on by hand because these small parts (like door hinges) are difficult for a robot to pick up from a jumbled box of parts and orientate correctly. Human eyes and hands can do that easily.

[Merzbow]

Awesome....now I can really see how much would have to be altered to put a V8 in it (removed)...

[MailGuy!]

Thanks man, it's really cool to see what makes this Wagon so strong. I've always been impressed by the structural rigidity of our cars. Now I can see first hand how they reinforced it to be so strong.Cool!

[GMJAP]

Cool Pictures.Thanks for posting!