Too bad we couldn't have an old head GM corp or engineer chime in to tell us the rhyme or reason. Sure it was EPA/mpg related.
Aluminum Hood
- Thread starter hangar401
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But how would they know? It comes back to randomness. Let's say they give you aluminum parts on your 307 84 Calais (My dad had one with an aluminum hood). It rolls off the line, onto the truck/train and off it goes. Delivered to the dealer, then customer. Why do they care if it has a steel or aluminum hood? The next car they sell may not. I mean, they did it, but didn't do anything with the end use of the car. Not once did GM ever contact my dad about what his mpg was or anything else. And it wasn't like they could pull up the OnStar report from it back then.
If it had ANYTHING to do with the EPA/mpg situation, it was a calculation saying upfront something like "Ok, EPA. We'll build (fill in a number) of cars with aluminum parts so we can calculate our CAFE will be such and such..." Which I doubt, but it's the only way that would make sense. Basically a calculation, not a real-world situation. They put an RPO on each car to designate to the line guy to pull and install an aluminum part. But other than that...they hardly kept any records of which cars got which RPOs. Nowhere I've seen a GM stat that said they built 4,200 1984 Calais with an aluminum hood. Strange thing was, you could buy an aluminum hood over the counter at the dealership. I ended up buying a steel hood though. Kinda glad I did. But should have bought a few aluminum ones too. I could probably have flipped them for some big $$. Hindsight's 20/20.
Good point! Unfortunately from the engineers, right down to the assembly line workers at GM, the left hand dint know what the right was doing.
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