General Motors has said that its $131m investment in technology at the Bowling Green Assembly Plant in Kentucky is resulting in “the strongest and most precisely built Corvette in its six-decade history”.
The new technologies include the first production use of a GM-patented process allowing aluminium to be spot welded to aluminium.
According to Dave Tatman, plant manager at Bowling Green, the new aluminium process enables GM “to make the frame lighter and stiffer, improving the performance and driving confi dence”.
Around $52m of GM’s total investment went into a new bodyshop which manufactures the lightweight aluminium frame in-house for the fi rst time.
Other new technologies include fl owdrill fastening, which is a fi rst for GM body structure joining; laser welding, which enables quick, continuous welding when only single-sided access is available in the tunnel subassembly; and laser vision inspection for quality assurance with 25% tighter tolerances than before.