Vega vertical delivery - pictures

[SSNJim]

I remember a while back seeing a thread that included how the Chevrolet Vega was delivered by train. They were loaded onto a train car so that they were nose down. The link below has some neat pictures of the loading process.

http://www.amcarguide.com/uncategorized/car-delivery-back-in-a-day/

[slusher]

Saw this before and never seen cars shipped like that...

[Danno]

Saw this before and never seen cars shipped like that...

Carl, how can you say you've never seen it if you saw this before?

Neat pix.

[slusher]

Carl, how can you say you've never seen it if you saw this before?

Neat pix.

You know what I mean ,or hope so...

[Danno]

Yae

You know what I mean ,or hope so...

Just funnin' with ya.

Yeah, I knew what you probably meant. But taken literally, it was self-contradictory.

[Greg Wann]

I saw a yellow Kammback Vega wagon on the road the other day that looked brand new. I can remember my brother wanting to buy one when they came out.

[Danno]

I saw a yellow Kammback Vega wagon on the road the other day that looked brand new. I can remember my brother wanting to buy one when they came out.

I wanted a Kammback in the worst way, too! I thought they were too kool! Figured it would be a kick to tool around in one. Shoulda got one and started a pizza delivery business in a college town!

[Scale-Master]

I had two Kammbacks. '73 and a '72. Lowered sport springs, Dual Webers, minilites, Blackjack header/Ansa exhaust, among many "upgrades". Didn't have the horsepower to run with my friends V8 cars, but I could out handle and out brake them well enough I was never left in the dust, and lost them on El Toro Road and Ortega Highway every time.

[Danno]

I had two Kammbacks. '73 and a '72. Lowered sport springs, Dual Webers, minilites, Blackjack header/Ansa exhaust, among many "upgrades". Didn't have the horsepower to run with my friends V8 cars, but I could out handle and out brake them well enough I was never left in the dust, and lost them on El Toro Road and Ortega Highway every time.

There you go! Exactly what I would have guessed. Obviously fun to drive, huh, Mark?

[slusher]

I saw a yellow Kammback Vega wagon on the road the other day that looked brand new. I can remember my brother wanting to buy one when they came out.

My parents bought one new in 74 at Nickey Chevrolet.. Rusted like crazy in 3 years. my parents sold it

Edited July 8, 2014 by slusher

[Dragfreak]

I've got a '71 panel delivery in the original lacquer forest green with patina, it's my high school project. This Saturday I'm going to pick up a tube chassis '71 panel drag car with a fiberglass 76/7 nose and bumpers I'm into both of these cars for $4800, that's not counting the drivetrain in the green '71

And my soon to be high school drag car, it'll be getting the motor and tranny from my street car

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread, if I am mod feel free to delete...

Edited July 8, 2014 by Dragfreak

[Danno]

Kewl, Jason!

[Dragfreak]

Kewl, Jason!

Thank you, It's taken a lot of work to get here, everything you see I worked for, I had to make the money before I could progress, that's why its taken me four years and working almost everyday of my summers to buy the orange vega, but its all worth it now, not to mention I bought the green 71 for $300 out of a barn it had been sitting in since '78 and the orange vega a local racer who is a very close friend has been saving it for me for years and knocked about $11,000 off what it would cost to anyone else. So I've received a lot of support to get here

Edited July 8, 2014 by Dragfreak

[Scale-Master]

There you go! Exactly what I would have guessed. Obviously fun to drive, huh, Mark?

Not as much fun as my '73 Camaro... But yes, a blast at the time.

Actually, I was building the engine that is in the Camaro for the Vega, but it got totaled before I finished it. Victim of an idiot trying to steal it. Flooded the Webers, they backfired and it burned to the ground. At least the settlement bought me the Camaro.

[slusher]

I've got a '71 panel delivery in the original lacquer forest green with patina, it's my high school project. This Saturday I'm going to pick up a tube chassis '71 panel drag car with a fiberglass 76/7 nose and bumpers I'm into both of these cars for $4800, that's not counting the drivetrain in the green '71

And my soon to be high school drag car, it'll be getting the motor and tranny from my street car

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread, if I am mod feel free to delete...

Great looking Vegas Jason..

[Dragfreak]

Great looking Vegas Jason..

Thanks Carl, one day I hope to have them both in the original green paint, that would be neat having a street car and race car that are very similar

[Tom Geiger]

I wanted a Kammback in the worst way, too! I thought they were too kool! Figured it would be a kick to tool around in one. Shoulda got one and started a pizza delivery business in a college town!

Irony! I wanted one too. I even bought the Vega wagon funny car kit to replicate what I wanted! Of course my angle was that I could lure unsuspecting girls into the back!

In Hazlet, NJ Tony's Pizza started up with a fleet of red Vega sedan deliveries. They lasted a very short time!

[Greg Myers]

[Danno]

Yikes!

[Art Anderson]

I remember a while back seeing a thread that included how the Chevrolet Vega was delivered by train. They were loaded onto a train car so that they were nose down. The link below has some neat pictures of the loading process.

http://www.amcarguide.com/uncategorized/car-delivery-back-in-a-day/

That shipping system was put in place by I believe, the Southern Pacific Railroad, with the cooperation of GM, but never really did take off. It was necessarily limited to cars of a length that could be accommodated in an upended fashion within the constraints of railroad clearances--for example, there are many rail lines in the northeastern US that to this day do not have the necessary height clearance for the now ubiquitous 85-foot long, trilevel automobile carrier cars used on all railroads for shipment of new cars (those same lines can't handle Amtrak's high level passenger cars either, for the same reason).

The 85' trilevel cars were originally derived from the 85' piggyback flatcars which began showing up in freight trains in the late 1950's, and had the same advantage as the later trilevel auto racks: They could be loaded (and unloaded) in fairly long strings of railroad cars, by use of folding ramps at each end, which allowed semi-trailers to be backed down a cut of as many as 20 flatcars, dollied down and secured for travel, the driver simply driving his tractor forward to a small loading dock. Trilevel auto racks can be loaded and unloaded in much the same fashion, of course the new cars driven forward down a long tunnel of autoracks to be chained down for shipment--their drivers simply getting out of the cars, walking to the end of the car, and climbing down a ladder to go back to the loading dock for their next car. Rail yards and even factory loading areas simply didn't have the space for large loading platforms to which those new Vega's could be driven, or rolled to, and then onto their individual tilting ramps in a side-loading rail car. As such, the experiment was ended fairly quickly, with only a couple of hundred of that type of automobile carrying rail car ever being built.

Art

[DynoMight]

My uncle got one of these during the late 70s I think and the doors were like cardboard, they were so thin haha; at least that's what my mom said..

[lordairgtar]

When I was a teen, my dad took me down to the yards to see this new rail car that the Milwaukee Road was going to get a fleet of. It was the Vega transporter. My dad worked for the CMStP&P RR, then the Soo Line later.