From 1969 looking at the Ghia's...

Cool photo. Thanks.

Thats really cool! Look at all the '914s on the left. One of those could be yours!

... And is that guy in the front wearing Birkenstocks? In a factory? My how times have changed.

...and he had a beer with lunch

...at the factory cafeteria

Do you have it in good quality ?
Can you mail it to me ?

Thanks!!

when i was stationed in germany i toured a daimler/benz factory. watching everyone in the cafeteria have a fine pilsner during lunch was interesting.

k

It's the same in some Polish factories.

It's crazy to see the Bugs and the Ghias and how dated their body styles look in comparison to the 914's. The 914 look so much more modern of a car for that time period. What do you all think??

Ed

I thought the same thing when I saw the picture.

Lots of body color painted bumpers on those 914s.

Woot! New background! Thanks for the hi res pic!

zach

The only thing I thought is that they had to push them too (The Ghia).

Build quality =

I think this was a posed picture.
There was a long exposure to get the shot. If you look in the upper left, behind the 914s, you see ghost images of people moving around. Another is the old dude in the top right at the parts wall.

The photographer had the line workers in the for-ground hold a pose for at least a second while the film was exposed and the rest of the factory went about its work. Probably a flash was used as well, but it was still a long exposure.

They probably had to do several takes to get the one that was actually in focus.

Cool!

How do you know those aren't REAL ghosts?

Thats a Karmann Carosserie facility,
Karmann Ghias, Karmann bodied 914s and Karmann bodied VW cabriolets

Great photo! Thanks for posting this for all to see. I still like the lines of the Karmann Ghia after all these years.

I always enjoyed the photo of the workers pushing the 914-6 bodies on the carts to the Porsche factory to be finished there. It is neat to see that this was the case for all those 914 bodies.

I love factory photos like these!

If I'm not mistaken, the only time the workers in the Polish factories didn't drink, was lunch time.

Very cool photo!

The meager spot welds on some suspension consoles would support that theory

Why would three workers be screwing the same turn signal screw?
Also why would a car need a push on a moving roadway line?
Note that only one side of each car is on the moving roadway, I bet there was only a single line of cars coming down that line normally.

Cool, but posed.

It's an assembly line and that is their job at that point.

The guy isn't pushing the car. He's a hunchback walking between the two cars




Or then again, maybe....... just maybe it's a cool original pic of the facility as it actually operated, and it doesn't matter that it was staged as a press photo

Poser!

How does the conveyor line move the cars when it's only under one side? Do they lock (or chock) the wheel on the conveyor and leave the other side free to roll?

Or would this conveyor line normally be used for one row? (Suggesting that the whole setup is staged/posed?)

It's a very cool photo regardless, just curious.

Look at those colors!

New paint colors suck by comparison.

No. That's how they rolled, only two wheels on the belt. Besides, the track width of neither the Beetle nor the Ghia is wide enough to fit on both belts at the same time.

Regardless of that, the picture is clearly staged, as was pointed out before ...

because they are, '38 for the bug and '55 for the ghia.

but so classic.... all of them.

The Bug was designed in the 1930's, the Ghia in the mid 1950's, the 914 in the late 60's, hardly a crazy thing that the 914 looks so much more modern, it is!

What you don't see is the 911 line. These are contract cars for VW. Porsche had their own contract for the 911 bodies.

Don

Karmann factory. 911's were done at the Porsche factory

Karmann was building 911 (& 912 thru '69) bodies for Porsche through 1971. The Porsche factory couldn't handle the production numbers. Once Werks II was completed, the Karmann 911 contract ended. Karmann was a very busy coach builder in it's day with VW it's main client and remained independent to the end.
Don