I saw a photo from the Fisher body plant in Flint in 1966 and that got me wondering... Was there a Fisher body plant in Oshawa for our Canadian Pontiac's? What about cars built in St. Therese? Where did those bodies come from? I'm assuming the bodies were built in the regular plant and still got the "Body by Fisher" sill plates. is that correct?
I don't know the answer to that, but will start off with some clues from wikipedia:
"In the early years of the company, the Fisher Brothers had to develop new body designs because the "horseless carriage" bodies did not have the strength to withstand the vibration of the new motorcars. By 1913, the Fisher Body Company had the capacity to produce 100,000 cars per year and customers included: Ford, Krit, Chalmers, General Motors, and Studebaker. Highly successful, they expanded into Canada, establishing a plant in Walkerville, Ontario. By 1914 their operations had grown to become the world's largest manufacturer of auto bodies. One reason for their success was the development of interchangeable wooden body parts that did not require hand-fitting, as was the case in the construction of carriages. This required the design of new precision woodworking tools.
The Fisher Body and Buick chassis were built in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, in the 1920s.[citation needed]"
It's pretty vague, and in the early days, so not sure how that translates to the 1950s-up.
"More expansion followed. In 1912, Fisher organized a Canadian adjunct, Fisher Body Co. of Canada, Ltd., headquartered in Walkerville, Ontario, across the river from downtown Detroit. Lawrence P. Fisher joined his brothers in 1912 as superintendent of paint and trim, followed in 1913 by Edward F. and Alfred J. Fisher, who worked in every department of the plant before being given more responsible duties. Finally, William A. Fisher arrived in 1915 from the Fisher Auto Top Co., a large supplier of canvas car roofs."
"By 1914, the company had grown with such speed that there were 10 plants in operation around the Detroit area and in Canada."
"In 1916 Fisher merged its two U.S. companies and its Canadian operations, and the Fisher Body Corp. was incorporated in New York, with a stock authorization of $6 million. "
"After World War I, Fisher again considered total auto manufacture, but the attractions of that plan were eclipsed by another. Three established automakers contemplated acquiring Fisher Body Company as a wholly-owned subsidiary: Ford, Studebaker, and General Motors. GM's Pierre S. DuPont and Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., perhaps attracted by Fisher's tidy corporate and organizational structure, struck the bargain with Louis Mendelssohn and the Fisher Brothers.
GM's buyout of Fisher Body took place in two steps -- one in 1919 and the final one in 1926."
"Starting in Detroit in 1908, this company appeared in Walkerville on Edna Street in the early teens. The company, though originally formed for the manufacture of automobile bodies for Ford, produced bodies for such companies as Chevrolet, Chalmers, E-M-F and Studebaker. "Body by Fisher" became a popular slogan.
The size of the plant was doubled in 1919 and in 1920 it began making passenger car bodies for General Motors. It later became a part of General Motors and its premises were used for the assembly of GMC trucks and buses from 1930 to 1932."
"Starting in the 1930s, The Fisher Body Company in Detroit, in conjunction with General Motors in Detroit and Oshawa where the Canadian Headquarters was located, ran a series of competitions in design and styling for teenage students. In the early years of the competition, contestants ordered a set of model plans to build a Napoleonic Carriage which was the signature logo of the company."
Having grown up around the Van plant here in Scarborough. With a few relatives as employees who would take a bright eyed youngster around on tours. They made the bodies in the plant from various stampings.
Somewhere here I have a brochure of the Oshawa plant. It's been a number of years since I looked at it, I'll see if I can dig it up and see what it shows.
The trend was to move stampings in-house, as time passed, although Budd, A.G. Simpson, and others did quite well up until recent times. Fisher was acquired by GM roughly 100 years ago, so the "Body By Fisher" tags didn't really denote a coachbuilder's work after that.
Here's a leaflet from October 1961, it looks like the bodies were assembled in the "Body Assembly Plant" before taking the bridge over to the "Final Assembly Plant".
