Vise grips, clamps, rulers, and body tools ensure all dimensions are exact before any welding takes place. The entire assembly process is accomplished by one fabricator for each body. If it takes greater force than one person delivers to fit panels, then the fitment is reworked so no significant amounts of tension are within the assembly.

“For the Camaro and Firebird bodies, there is a floor fixture and an in-car body fixture,” Whitaker continues. “The body fixture is very sophisticated. Many individual fixture pieces come in and out as we build the car. Everything is held together with 3/8-inch Allen bolts, nuts, and all straight-line clamps that fit in the factory tooling holes.”

All of the fixture designs are rather ingenious, utilizing the varied sections of fixtures that are continuously installed and then removed. Whitaker explains you would have a “building a ship in a bottle” result when removing the fixtures from the final body assembly.