Transporting the Vega to market, 70's style

In their first attempt to move into the small car market of the early 1970's (dominated by Honda, Toyota, and Datsun), GM produced the Chevy Vega. In spite of being named Motor Trend's Car of the Year for 1971, it wasn't a runaway success.

John DeLorean wrote disparagingly about the Vega:

[On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors] published by John DeLorean in 1979, who was president of Chevrolet at the time of development, indicated that the prototype car literally fell apart just eight miles (13 km) into its first road test. DeLorean criticized the Vega as a poor design developed by central corporate GM engineers rather than Chevrolet engineers and said that the car had been forced upon a disgruntled Chevrolet by GM management. He also criticized the engine saying that it was "a relatively large, noisy, top-heavy combination of aluminum and iron which cost far too much to build, (and) looked like it had been taken off a 1920 farm tractor..." and "Chevy engineers were ashamed of the engine."

Moving the Vega to market called on the railway industry to come up with some more creative ways of packaging the cars for safe transport from the factory to dealerships. From the Wikipedia article:

One innovation of the original Vega was that it was designed to be shipped vertically with its nose down. For example, the battery had fill caps at the back to prevent leakage during transit. Special rail cars known as "Vert-A-Pac" cars were built with hangers to carry the first Vegas to market in this vertical arrangement. One of the notable locations where these cars were unloaded was at the now defunct Sawtell Auto Ramps in Atlanta, Georgia, located on the former Southern, now Norfolk Southern mainline to Macon.

Frank Greene provided some photos of these unusual railcars:

He notes for this image that in the background "are Stac-Pac containers for loading Cadillacs, another idea that came and went in about the same 1970-1977 time frame."

A row of Vega hatchbacks ready to be backed off the doors.

Showing the specially equipped forklift operating the door/ramp.