A non-American Chevrolet (UPDATE: CKD or KD?)

• 
• 

The recent article on the meeting of cars with a body built by Gläser, prompted Dutch car historian Frans Vrijaldenhoven to tell us about another Gläser body. As a young boy Frans was pictured along side the new car of his family doctor, a Chevrolet 4-door Convertible Sedan. These 4-door convertibles, dating from 1935 or 1936, were built by Gläser in Dresden, Germany and were not on the American sales program. For many years Frans has been trying to find out how the production system of Gläser worked. In those years the long wheelbase Chevrolet Imperial chassis arrived at the harbour in Antwerp, Belgium and were then transported by train to Gläser. For the production system there could have been three possibilities: Gläser built the complete car and exported them. Or Gläser built the convertible body as a CKD-system (completely knocked down, i.e. in separate parts) and then sent these back to the General Motors Assembly Plant in Antwerp. The third possibility could be that Gläser built only the bare body and transported that to Belgium. The cars were then assembled at the GM plant using many national products such as upholstery, seats, glass and the convertible hood. Nobody seems to know how many of these convertibles have been built in 1935 and 1936. Do you know? Frans would very much like to hear more about these Chevy’s as there is still one survivor (click) in Holland. Contact us (RB)

Update by Hugh Nutting: “Another way custom coachwork was done went like this: Gläser or a GM Dealer ordered a partially complete car in KD (partly knocked down) form (this lowered the tax rate, too). It would have the front clip, cowl, floor and rear fenders on the chassis. Many times the coachbuilder or the dealer had their own salesman for custom orders. These guys took many orders at major car shows. The car was pre-sold before the body was started. This practice was used in the US for woodies by Cantrell, Hercules and Campbell plus others. The stripped chassis were often driven from the delivery point to the coachbuilder by employees on week-ends. It helped them earn a little more money in the post depression years. This particular Chevrolet is a 1936 that might be first registered as a 1937 if the coachwork was completed very late in 1936.”

Ajoutez un commentaire...