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CORVETTE TODAY #176-Meet The Paint & Body Shop Manager at Bowling Green Assembly, Chuck Valentini
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May 8, 2025
Chuck Valentini is one of the people on the Corvette team that you don't get to see too often. But he plays a key role on Corvette...he is the Manager of the Paint & Body Shop at the Bowling Green Assembly Plant! Chuck spends some quality time with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett to talk about the upgrades to the Paint Shop, the details behind the $439 million expansion to prepare for the C8 Corvette, the revolutionary, new paint process that the plant paints Corvettes and how environmentally friendly the new paint shop is. Chuck truly takes you behind the scenes at the Bowling Green Assembly plant to give you an insiders look at Corvette. This is a "must see" and "must listen to" episode of the ONLY current podcast on Corvette....CORVETTE TODAY!
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[Music] welcome to Corvette today the podcast
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that talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett MC and DJ at one of the largest Corvette weekends
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the number one radio station in Kansas City for over 40 years here's Steve Garrett
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[Music] thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about
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everything Corvette and the only current podcast dedicated to Corvette I'm your
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host Steve Garrett I appreciate you tuning in Corva today is brought to you by wheelcraft want to dress up your
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canadiancorpetforum.com welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the world my guest on today's show is the
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plant body systems area manager for the Bowling Green assembly plant in layman's terms that means he's the man in charge
2:54
of the paint shop and the body shop for Corvette you see him at numerous NCM bashes before his name is Chuck
3:01
Valentini Chuck welcome to Corvette today hi Steve hey it's great to be here
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today I appreciate the invite and for the chance to talk with you and the talk to our quarterback customers it's an
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honor and a pleasure having you on the show thank you Chuck first of all let's talk about you personally talk about
3:18
your childhood where'd you grow up talk about your family and did you grow up in a car family yes so for me Maryland is
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home that's where I was born raised and grew up I definitely came from a car family in fact my family has 120 years
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of service to General Motors my grandfather was an hourly employee in
3:39
Baltimore Maryland at the Baltimore assembly plant my dad worked at that plant and both of them worked for 35
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years my brother worked for General Motors and then myself and here in September is my 29th year with General
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Motors so yes that all up it's 120 years of service to GM and so I think that
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that would qualify as us coming from a car family and my dad used to race cars
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he used to race quarter mile for Pontiac in a Pontiac GTO and so it was kind of
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just something that I'd always been exposed to and happy to have been exposed to that and so that's kind of my
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background and where I grew up that's amazing so you knew you were a car guy from birth didn't you yeah I kind of did
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I'll tell you when I really knew it for sure my dad had a 76 Corvette it was
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white with a four speed and he had done a lot of work to that car from a performance perspective and when it
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would start in our garage it would shake my mom's China closet that's awesome and that's when I kind of
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knew you know you kind of have that feeling that hey I like that that's cool how did he get to do that and what made
4:49
that special and so that kind of was the beginnings of it for me and of course that was even younger but even when I
4:55
was 16 I took my driver's test in a new Camaro Z28 and that wasn't necessarily
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our plan that wasn't what my parents wanted me to use but our other family car was this big Oldsmobile 98 and that
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thing was too big for me to park so the Camaro it was I had to take the Camaro to the driver's test you know and we
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were a little worried that they might be like hey do we want to give a license to a 16 year old if he's driving this
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Camaro Z28 but I could park that car well and so that's why we took that and
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it worked out well and you know past my test of course but it worked out good to always being exposed to cars like that
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and it really came from dad you know wanting to have cars like that in the family and I think that to have a car
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like a Corvette it needs to be built by people that are Car Guys right people that have a passion for cars like our
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customers have it's a special car right it's not something that's just designed to give you a basic Transportation it's
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something that makes you feel special when you're driving it something that makes you want to just drive even if you
5:55
don't have a destination and I think in order to build something like that you need car guys on the team building it
6:02
absolutely right and you know what when you went to get your driver's license I'm sure you impressed the guy the guy
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in the car and took the test with you didn't you well yeah I made sure I was very careful with it and that didn't
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throw a lot of RPMs in it and was able to park it really well and so passed the test with no problems but there was a
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little concern with me bringing it just because you know you don't want to give a kid a car like that but it went well
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and it was a lot of fun my parents also had when I was in my senior year high school they had a Buick Grand National
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I'm sure all your listeners remember what a phenomenal car that Buick Grand
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National was and that was actually the car I took to my senior prom I was really excited about that and so I think
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you know when you look at it it's fair to say I grew up in a car family that's a great story well buddy where did you
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go to school what did you study in college so I went to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore I have a
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master's degree from there in applied sciences when I went to do that you know Johns Hopkins is I think it's you know
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really good school but one of the things that they tell you that they do different is they want to teach you how to think you know they don't want you to
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just learn formulas or to give them back how to do something they want you to understand it and understand how to use
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it and how to develop it and I think those skills that I learned there gave
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me a good Baseline for wanting to drive improvements and innovation in what I
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get to do now and so I feel really fortunate that I was able to learn things in school that I actually get to
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apply to my day job right because there's a lot of folks you know that went to school for one thing and then in
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reality they now are in the world making a living doing something else so I thought it worked out pretty well for me that I was able to learn something in
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school and then apply it to my actual job I thought it was a really good education there and and prepared me for
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what was going to happen after school definitely not Motors and what was your first job once
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you got there so for me I started in Baltimore like we had said Marilyn was home and I started at the Baltimore
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assembly plant I was a process engineer in our body shop so I had responsibility
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for dimensional control and did mechanical projects in the body shop and
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I'll tell you one of the things that was special for me when I started there there was still some folks there some
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hourly folks in the plant that had worked with my grandfather wow and so they had said to me hey are you Sam
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valentini's boy I said well Sam was my grandfather and he had passed away when I was 13 and so it was neat to have
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friends of his that were in that plant and then to see me come you know they knew my dad's my dad worked there and
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then to see me come in that was special for me and so I really enjoyed that and made me know I was in the right spot
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doing the right things and I did a couple of different engineering jobs in Baltimore was there for about five years
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and then left there and went to our Shreveport Louisiana plant as the reliability engineering manager down at
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that facility and I was there for about two years and then I got promoted to
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Quality operations manager at our Linden New Jersey plant and I did that for about two years and then became the
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paint Superintendent at that plant they wanted to make a change in paint and so
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the plant managers at the time decided that's where I was going to go I went there and it was really a good thing for
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me because Paint Body both really are a specialty type field and people once you get into those areas with their company
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that's kind of where you stay and you develop through unless you don't like those areas but I really do I like the
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challenge in them and so that started my paint career and when I left Lynden I went to our Lansing Grand River
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operations in Lansing Michigan I was the paint shift leader there wow and we built some Cadillac Products including
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the V series Cadillacs from there I went to our Lansing Delta Township plant
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which is also in Michigan it's a paint shift leader there and that's where I was before before I came here to Bowling
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Green and this job is the body and pain area manager so he had all that up it was 29 years six different plants and a
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bunch of different assignments within those years wow that's amazing buddy we'll talk about the transition over to
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the Bowling Green assembly plant and handing up the paint and body shop there that was actually a really cool day when
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I got the phone call to say hey would you be interested in coming to the
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Bowling Green assembly plant for this job when they offered me to come I'll tell you it was not any thought at all
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for me I mean one in my opinion if you're going to be in the car business what else do you want to build exactly
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we're looking for GM and so that was a great honor for me to be able to come work on this car you know because it
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truly is a special car and to work on it I feel privilege to do that to come here and take that on on a personal note my
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brother was also at this assembly plant as I mentioned to you he worked for GM and he started in Baltimore and then he
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came year and in fact he spent most of his General Motors career here in Bowling Green so to be able to come and
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kind of be reunited with our family if you will he had unfortunately been diagnosed with cancer and was going
11:08
through cancer treatments and so it worked out just so well for me because I was able to be here and support him
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through his final years and to have that important family time going to Troublesome time for us that was
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important from a family perspective and then the excitement of being able to work at Bowling Green and work on the
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core lab program I was just great and we knew when I came here which was in 2014
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that we were going to build a new paint shop and that was going to be one of the projects that I was going to work on so
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it was definitely a lot of excitement during that period of time for me when I made the transition to come here very
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cool and buddy that was a perfect segue because we're going to take our first break when we come back we're going to
11:49
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today or call them at 833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett
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with me is Chuck Valentini the Bowling Green assembly plant paint shop and body shop manager in segment number two we're
15:32
going to talk about the expansion of Bowling Green Chuck GM spent 439 million
15:37
dollars in upgrades and expansion and the plant expanded by 450 000 square
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feet for the C8 talk about the paint shop in the body shop before the massive
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upgrade and then we'll transition into what it is now sure well frankly our
15:53
paint shop that was here was a very old shop it did not have the technology or
15:59
the means in it to produce the world-class finish that was befitting
16:04
our car and that we knew our customers were looking for and so as the C8 was
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being designed we knew it was going to be an exceptional and awesome car and it was going to be a car that we didn't
16:16
have to make any excuses for and so we wanted to make sure that we elevated the
16:21
paint finish to that car to the same level that the rest of the car was going to be and when we assessed the old paint
16:28
shop that we had here there was no way we could retrofit that to accomplish
16:34
what we wanted to do so General Motors made the decision to make this extremely large capital expenditure to build this
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new paint shop here in Bowling Green in fact that price that you quoted that a 439 million that was the price of the
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paint shop alone wow the other expansions that that we did cost additional money our body shop was nice
16:57
it had been recently refreshed for the C7 but we did have to replace that for
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the C8 the move to the mid-engine architecture obviously changed
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significantly the whole body structure of the car and that necessitated us building a new body shop as well so
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there's a brand new body shop here at the plant and then of course the paint shop paint shops are the most expensive
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portion of our assembly plants partly from the technology that's in them but also from all of the infrastructure and
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environmental controls that go along with supporting that paint process so that's how we kind of made the decision
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and then started on the process so that when we launched C8 we knew we needed
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the new body shop but we also wanted the new paint shop so that we could Elevate the finish of the car to be fitting in
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the car that's amazing that's a lot of money just for a paint shop 439 million dollars it is now the paint equipment at
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the balloon and green assembly plant is also very revolutionary you don't paint Corvettes like a traditional car is
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painted talk about that and how the Bowling Green assembly plant is on The Cutting Edge of painting cars you're
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right I mean you can imagine a company like General Motors when we build shops in this case paint shops we have a
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standard deal of process if you will as to how we should do it and that's how we build our paint facilities this one is a
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one-off design and it's because here we're painting composite body panels
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there are issues with composite body panels they don't like heat for example
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they can't withstand the same heat that a metal body vehicle has there's some
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porosity in them where they're porous and they'll actually absorb some of the fluid package into the panel itself
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which is not normal when you deal with an aluminum or a steel body panel so one
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of the things that we did when we were designing this shop is is it's like okay this is our clean sheet approach what do
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we need what do we want to do here that will be different that'll overcome the
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challenges of the composite body so we use the Composites right they're great they're lightweight they allow us to
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hold really great shapes some nice angularity shapes and that's why we use them it's just a little tougher for us
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to paint so how are we going to do that I'll highlight three of them one is I'll mention the low bake so as we talked
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about not liking heat so we have to bake at a significantly lower temperature than a normal paint shop does that
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requires differences in our oven technology the lengths of our ovens and then even in the pink formulation itself
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so that we get the appropriate cure on the vehicle and then another big change
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of this shop is we have a robotic wet sand process here so what we do is all
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of our panels are primed twice that's not normal normal paint shops they're
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primed once but for us the first layer of prime that's added is added by our
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supplier and it has a conductivity additive to it to make our panels conductive during the painting process
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what you do is you charge the paint and we ground the body and this AIDS in pain applications so that the paint goes
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where we want it to on the panel well composite panels aren't naturally conductive so we had to have an additive
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to it right and then the other advantage of adding two layers of prime because then we Prime them after we receive them
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that gives us a double layer of prime and then we sand part of the primer off
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to create a smoother surface I would describe it this way if you think of a car's primer as the canvas for a
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painting so the better that canvas is the better the final product will be we
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spent a lot of time energy and effort to improve the canvas if you will before we
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paint it and that's why we did that and then I'll tell you the last major difference or one of the other major
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differences I'll talk about is we added additional spray booth capacity in the shop so that we can paint cars slower
20:57
with multiple passes when we paint them paint doesn't like you to put it all on
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at one time I'm sure everyone's done their Home Depot weekend painting project and if you put too much on you
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see what happens with that you'll get some sags and things of that nature so think of it as you want to double coat
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it it's the same thing when we paint cars we want to double pass all of that
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when they're in our spray booths right so when they're painted you'll watch the robots paint them and then you'll see
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either that robot or one of the adjacent robots depending on the panel goes back over it and does it again and that gives
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us the ability to more precisely control the paint fluids and ultimately improve the appearance of the car all of those
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things I mentioned were designed to approve appearance and reduce Orange Peel right orange Peel's something that's naturally inherent in a paint
21:44
process and any paint process but we tried to do these things that have significantly reduced the amount of
21:51
orange peel that there on our cars very nice and that's a big deal in the car industry especially in the high-end cars
21:58
like Corvette Orange Peel is a big deal and it's great to see that you guys have addressed that and are working to almost
22:04
eliminate that as well yes Corvette customers take their cars like you say to the museum to The Bash to the various
22:10
other shows they like show the cars and they want to have a good finish on it that was clearly one of our goals with
22:16
the new shop is to improve the finish of the car and a lot of that technology that I mentioned we did specifically to
22:23
make the appearance of the car better and I think the data shows and the feedback that we've gotten shows that
22:28
people can see the difference in the car as a result of that definitely Chuck talk about the role you played in the
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expansion did you have a personal role in the equipment and the facility and the layout and everything yes I would
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say the first thing we did because a lot of the things we did in this building we've not done them before we tested
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some of this in our old paint shop okay so the robotics sanding process for example we didn't have robots to do that
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in the old shop so we built some panels by hand to simulate what the robot would do then painted them through that shop
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to see what the Improvement was and even with the paint technology that we had
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over there the spray applications that we had there even with that older technology we saw the improvements and
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because we were able to do that and validate it and show folks that listen
23:20
yes it's going to cost us more money by adding these extra processes but look at the result and look what it's going to
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be when we do that that was a big enabler for us so by being here and being involved and I had responsibility
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for the old shop as well when I got here so having that as well as working on this one that let me use resources right
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to be able to do things like that testing to show that hey this is absolutely something we need to do very
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cool now talk about that very first Corvette that was painted in the new paint shop because I know you had to be
23:52
nervous and excited all the same time what was it what generation a Corvette was painted what was the color that
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first came out of that new paint shop yes so the first car that we painted it was a white C7 it was March 28 of 2017.
24:06
wow the reason I know that so particularly is because that was so
24:11
special to me that the Hood from that car is hanging on the wall right outside my office and there's a sign on it with
24:18
the date telling you that this was the first car painted in this paint shop and has the date on it there of March 28th
24:24
and it's signed by the members of the paint shop team for sure it was nervous and exciting like you said at both times
24:31
I mean we spent a couple years working on what this was going to be and making decisions about what it was going to do
24:38
and how we were going to process cars and when you do that and when you do something that's different than GM
24:43
standard bill of process for shops in our case we knew we were doing the right thing but it hadn't been done before so
24:51
yes I was very very this when we painted that car but I got to tell you that's one of my best days that I've had at
24:57
working for GM the rewarding feeling that when we ran that through here and it all worked and it turned out and it
25:04
looked the way we wanted it to it was like wow that was truly a memorable moment it's one that I absolutely won't
25:10
forget in my career that's a fantastic memory well buddy let's take our final break when we come back we're going to
25:15
talk more about how you paint Corvettes at the Bowling Green assembly plant coming up next on Corvette today
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or black chrome wheels visit wheelcraft.com and learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can
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refinish your wheels or do a wheel exchange and you get a five-year warranty visit wheelcraft.com today or
28:23
call them 833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett
28:29
with me is Chuck Valentini the paint shop and body shop manager at the Bowling Green assembly plant in this
28:35
third and final segment we're going to talk more about how Bowling Green paints Corvettes Chuck your new paint shop
28:41
added new tooling and robots and everything is state of the art and it's environmentally safe too why don't we
28:48
talk about that because your dry scrub Booth technology and the LED lighting and all the new robots the high
28:54
efficiency baking ovens those are all state of the art yeah yes they are and
28:59
so we talked earlier about some of the enhancements in the shop that were designed to support quality well you
29:06
just mentioned some of the enhancements in our shop that were designed to support the environment and for us to be
29:12
good corporate citizens in the environment and as well as provide a good environment for our people to be in
29:17
so you mentioned our dry scrub technology and that's one I'm really proud of and we've won a number of
29:23
awards from the state of Kentucky for this technology because in a normal
29:29
paint shop the paint that doesn't get onto a vehicle when you spray it it goes
29:35
down below the spray booth into a paint recovery system that is essentially a
29:40
giant waterfall that captures the paint and then that water goes out to a waste
29:45
treatment plant the paint gets removed from it and what you're left with is a paint sludge that you then have to
29:51
dispose of well here we don't have that you know first our transfer efficiency
29:56
is very high so we don't put a lot of of paint below the booth into the dry scrub system but the paint that does go down
30:03
there it's captured by a crushed Limestone so there's a limestone bed underneath of our booth and the paint
30:09
falls into it and then as it attaches itself to the Limestone it's gently
30:14
agitated down and because it's heavier it goes to the bottom and it's evact out of the Boost automatically by our
30:21
equipment and there's two Farm silos on the east side of the paint shop and one
30:26
has clean new limestone in it and one has Limestone that's been used and we
30:32
get a truck twice a week that brings us fresh Limestone and then one that takes away the used Limestone and the great
30:38
thing with it is that Limestone then goes out and is made into cement and so
30:43
we don't have the waste stream of having to deal with paint sludge that's one of
30:49
the great Technologies that's in the shop that helps us from an environmental standpoint you know we want to be good
30:55
corporate citizens everywhere that we operate I mean we all live here and we want to do our part and that's a huge
31:01
thing that's a part of us doing that I would say as far as you mentioned some of our other enhancements of course we
31:07
have state-of-the-art LED lighting that is designed to allow The Operators to see the surface of the paint better but
31:14
of course use less energy our high efficiency baking ovens and if you think of a paint oven it's nothing like the
31:21
ovens in our house right there's not a door that opens and closes their giant tubes and the car goes in and it moves
31:27
through the tubes and it's exposed to a ramp up in temperature then it maintains temperature and then it comes down as
31:33
the car comes out but these ovens are designed so precisely that we don't need doors on them and you can stand next to
31:41
them and the heat's not coming out right so if you open your oven at home when you're cooking you're going to feel a lot of Heat come out you could stand at
31:48
the end of our ovens and you're like wow I think I should feel a lot of heat coming out but the way we have them balanced we keep the hot air in there
31:54
pain is such a complicated process and there's so many Tech technologies that go into it it's one of the things that I
32:00
enjoy about it is because there is a lot to it a lot of things that we can do to
32:06
make the process better for our cars but also better for the environment in other aspects as well that's fascinating Chuck
32:12
talk about how long it took to actually get from the planning stage of the
32:18
expansion all the way to completion because I've got to imagine there was a lot of years in the planning part of
32:23
this and did you play a part in putting all the plans together we did that's something that's very fortunate because
32:29
normally when you do a project like this at least with General Motors we're building the standard bill of process
32:36
templates and the shop basically is designed and then it goes to the field and it gets built and commissioned but
32:42
here because we did so many things that were unique and this was a one-off shop the team here myself we were integrally
32:48
involved in designing this shop so that we could have things like the robotic wet sand we have the blackout process on
32:56
the third floor where we spray that blackout material that's underneath of the rear hatch and then the hood on the
33:02
front of the car the front that's a process that's not in any of our other shops and so while GM has subject matter
33:08
experts in many things they don't have in some of the things that we do we're
33:13
the subject matter experts in those and so they pulled us in very early in this design stages so that we could help lead
33:20
the design of what this would be and that really started as soon as I got here in 2014. wow and that's when the
33:27
designing started we broke ground in 2015 there's a shovel on the wall in my
33:33
office that was used in the groundbreaking and has the date on it there from 2015 and then as I mentioned
33:39
to you it was March of 2017. we painted our first car so really you know about
33:45
three year process of design and then building and then commissioning and
33:50
launching of the shop it was a long-term commitment for us it was a lot of long days to get this thing from concept to
33:57
where it is but rewarding at the same time and I know this shop so well because we were here when it was dirt
34:03
and helped in all of the stages of the planning and then being on the floor as we were building it and then moving it
34:09
to launch and now to operation that's fantastic let's talk about paint colors for a little bit talk about your
34:16
interaction with the GM people that actually picked the paint color how does all that come together and do you have
34:22
some influence in those paint colors Jim has a color studio in Michigan and they
34:27
actually picked the colors for the car and then they sent to us what they would like and we then work on that and work
34:34
on workability and see is that something we can deliver in the way that they want it to look and sometimes the answer is
34:41
just a simple yes we can do that and we run our tests and we run the validations and it's a long process to get from that
34:49
to where we are on the final product we've already moved past the new colors
34:54
that we're launching here for 24 and we're already already working on what's coming for 25. Wow and so we stayed
35:02
several years ahead of the process and what's coming so they picked the colors and I will say that there are things
35:08
that we can do to adjust or pivot a shade of a color if we think it would be better one way or another and so we'll
35:15
do that and we'll say hey this is what you ask us for but this really looks better on the body of the car oh here's
35:22
kind of what we did to that so then we'll show this is how this looks and here's how we think the right way to get
35:27
that is and so our goal is to make it look as good as we can for the customer I will say as we've increased it was a
35:34
time of what you could get eight colors on a Corvette and then we went to tan then we launched the shop it was 12 and
35:40
now it's 14. well we know when we do that quantity of colors they all can't
35:47
be the best sellers right and so one of the things that's really good is having
35:52
the ability to paint all of these different colors allows us to do more Boutique colors right like the cacti
35:59
that's here for the 24 model year the new color right you know that color is not going to challenge torch red for the
36:05
top Sales spot right it's just not right and we know that but because we have the
36:11
systems available we can offer colors that appeal to a different segment of the group that says hey yeah I do like
36:18
that and I would like one that color and said we can run that for a couple of years and then bring something else in and that's one of the things that the
36:24
shop has allowed us to do is by having those additional systems to let us have more Boutique colors and a lot give the
36:31
customer more choice right because nobody wants the same colors and so this lets us mix that up we don't want to
36:37
have a model T's here where where they're all the same color that's really cool now Corvette is obviously in 2023
36:44
hit a milestone with its 70th Anniversary Stingrays and z06s as a matter of fact as you know I'm a proud
36:50
owner of a white pearl metallic Stingray Coupe myself but that color is very special because it's the first tricoat
36:57
color ever were offered on Corvette and it's only available on the 70th Anniversary cars let's talk about that
37:04
70th Anniversary white pearl metallic and obviously the Black Metallic color too and the role you played in both of
37:09
those colors sure well the program team wanted to do something special for the
37:15
70th Anniversary sure and we totally agreed right I mean it's a special thing to have a name plate running this long
37:21
and we wanted to make and help them commemorate the cars with something special and so the idea came up of
37:28
having a black and white and as you mentioned you know there was always a desire to have a tri-coat on the
37:33
Corvette yeah our old paint shop it was not capable of producing one well when we built this shop it was capable of
37:40
doing it right and it's an extra process because Normal cars you know there's a primer and then you have base paint and
37:47
then you have your clear coat well in a tri-code of course you know we have the primer our cars the default color is
37:54
gray so when we get the panel in it's kind of almost a black fryer that's on it and then we Prime them gray for most
38:01
cars that's the default collar but we also have a red primer and obviously we're using that on the Reds and an
38:08
orange and then we have white and so we would use white the white pearl would have that white primer but then instead
38:15
of just a base coat we have a ground coat and a mid coat and then the clear coat wow and that helps give a porescent
38:22
look to the car where you kind of see color as you're looking through the layers of the car and that's because the
38:28
color of the cars partially coming from that white Prime partially the ground partially the mid coat and that's what
38:34
kind of gives it that pearlescent look that the car has we knew that they always wanted that and what better time
38:40
to say yeah okay we're ready we can do it now let's go do it right because when we first launched the shop we didn't
38:46
want to do that it's a lot to launch and get everything going and we didn't want to add in the extra complexity of the
38:52
tri-code but the time was certainly right we were ready and what better car to put it on than the 78 anniversary car
38:58
I will tell you that for me it's one of my favorite colors it's the favorite one we're currently painting I had a Z06
39:05
that I was driving that was a 70th Anniversary light Pearl and that was a car that I ordered and I just loved that
39:11
car I thought it was absolutely awesome and we were involved very much in that one that's a case where they released
39:18
the colored us and asked for this and then as we brought it in and painted it and we're doing testing to it we made
39:25
some changes to the prime shade that changed the color and the Hue of the car from what its original intent was and we
39:32
just really loved how it made the car look and we shared it with the program team and like you know hey how do you
39:39
like this one and they're like oh yeah no we like it like that we wanted to do it like that and so we were able to do
39:47
that and when you you know that felt really great because you know that's a special car and for us to be able to
39:52
help tint that shade for it it's not like any other white pearls that are in the GM portfolio polio so if you park it
39:58
next to an Escalade or a Denali you'll see it's not the same we know that our customer would like that having that
40:04
unique color palette and we just think it looks so good on the car I'm really really happy with the way that color
40:09
turned out that we were able to deliver that one buddy I love the color I love the car and I love the uniqueness and
40:15
the specialness of it with that 70th Anniversary you hit a grand slam with that not just a home run but a grand
40:21
slam that's great thank you sure hey do you see any room for improvement with this upgraded paint job for sure I would
40:29
tell you that myself and my team we believe in continuous Improvement and we work every day every week to make the
40:35
car better right and sometimes it's things we can do within our current processes or equipment and sometimes we
40:42
need to add systems or technology like we did with adding additional systems so that we could increase the number of
40:48
paint colors because when we launched the shop we only had enough to do 12 colors and then since we launched it we added three more systems so that we
40:55
could take the color palette up to 15 mean now when you have a tri-coat that takes two of those systems so that's why
41:01
we're at 14. gotcha but we fully embrace the technology and we're always looking
41:06
for what's next we have a recent visit by maryborough our CEO of General Motors
41:13
as you know and one of the things that we did was take her into our paint shop
41:19
and show her some of the Innovative things that my team here has developed
41:24
that's such a proud moment for me to be able to show our leadership team what
41:29
technology it is that we're developing here in Bowling Green that's a great thing to show off the Innovation and so
41:36
yeah I'm always looking for what's next so I'm sure there'll be additional improvements coming wow that's awesome
41:41
rubbing elbows with the CEO that's pretty damn cool buddy now the plant tours have reopened
41:48
what will visitors see when they come through the paint shop at Bowling Green assembly plant when we designed the shop
41:54
we actually made a corridor a tour or you're very familiar you've seen this
41:59
Corridor that we put in yes our thought was we want to give people a window to the world of paint right so customers
42:06
they can't come in our paint shop due to contamination concerns right right so all the people in pain have to have the
42:12
lint-free blue suits they have to have special hats or hair nets they have to go through a crater testing process we
42:19
regulate what personal hygiene products they wear all things to keep contamination from people away from the
42:27
car so we couldn't let people in right but we want them to see and so what we did what they'll get to see and we've
42:33
added to this even since the tours have opened so if any of your listeners were here a number of months ago and said
42:39
well I didn't see that thing well that's because we keep adding to what's over there we have a video that shows the
42:44
entire process that we show to the visitors when they're there and then you actually get to see in one of our color
42:50
boosts you're actually looking at color Booth 3 and we put Glass Walls going down the side so that you can watch the
42:56
robots applying base paint to the car so that's a cool thing that people like to
43:02
be able to enjoy seeing the paint layering process that I explained to you where we have the supplier Prime than
43:08
ours then the base paint or in the case of a tri-coke the ground and the mid coat and then the clear coat we have
43:15
panels that show that different layering on the wall so you can see that and see how those are layered into a panel we
43:23
recently added samples of all of our colors so we have painted little models
43:28
of all of the colors there so that the customer can see them and I've recently added a new section of upcoming colors
43:35
that shows the new colors that are coming for a given model year so once the colors announce that it's released
43:42
then we'll put it up on the wall over there so that people can see that and I see a lot of customers looking at that
43:48
and looking at the different colors that are over there I think that's really a good thing there's a hood over there
43:53
that's behind the glass that came from the number 24 Henrik Motorsports ExAlta
43:58
Chevrolet that's driven by William Byron so ExAlta is our paint supplier and as
44:04
you know Rick Hendrick is a huge fan of Corvettes and he's here frequently since he buys the first event of all the cars
44:10
he gave us that hood and himself and William Byron who was also here assigned
44:15
it and it's a hood that was on the car actually last year in the NASCAR playoffs and it's signed and it's over
44:22
there for people to see we got a bell applicator off one of our robots over there so people can see what's on the
44:29
end of the robot and so I think that we've put a lot of things over there to
44:34
help show people what's going on in pain what's actually happening inside of there and so it was recently voted they
44:41
did a survey of guests visiting the plant it was recently awarded the best tour stop so our guest told us that this
44:48
is the stop that they like the most and got the most value from so I'm proud of that right that they get to see a window
44:53
to the paint world and then if they really enjoyed it you know that's important for us I loved watching the
44:59
robots paint the panels and looking at the colors on the wall that was fantastic buddy yeah and then there's
45:04
one more thing over there too that I wanted to mention because it's kind of a funny story you know when you talked about during the construction process
45:11
you know I would be out in the shop and I would walk the shop with the construction manager and obviously when
45:18
I would see something that wasn't right or that I didn't like I would say what's this what do we got here when we built
45:24
this the first piece of Steel that we put up on the shop was in the northeast corner of the shop and we signed it
45:30
before the piece of Steel got put into position wow and so we're walking the shop and we're over there and I'm
45:37
looking at the column and I said wait a minute where's the first piece of Steel that we put up I thought it was this one
45:42
but it can't be this one because this doesn't have any signatures on it a construction manager said oh Chuck the
45:49
dumb painters and I said what dumb painters no I run the paint shop you just called the painters dumb and he
45:55
said not your pain cleaners the ones that painted The Columns he said they painted over your signatures and I was
46:02
like well that's terrible he said well get a pen and resign it I go no that's not the same thing and then he said oh
46:09
wait he goes I have a better idea he said we're getting ready to pour the concrete in the tour area he said we'll
46:16
put your hand prints in the concrete over there and then they'll always be there they'll never have to worry about
46:23
them getting painted so over there in the tour area in the cement you'll see
46:28
the handprints of myself and some of the paint launch team in the cement and then
46:33
after we did that and Shop opened up and we started to bring tours and it was like you know people don't even notice
46:39
that those are there so we had the idea and said well we need to put a sign there so that folks know looked out and
46:46
here's what this is so they asked me they said well what do you want on the sign and we'll make a sign and we'll put
46:52
it here nice so if I can I'll redo it I wrote here because I think this is a really good good summary of the process
46:58
here for us I put in the concrete below you will see the hand prints and initials of some of the team that turned
47:05
the dream of this paint shop into reality along the way we learned it is harder to build a machine that builds
47:11
the machines than it is to build the machine itself but through dedication perseverance and teamwork we prevailed
47:18
it took over 2 million man hours to design construct and commission this
47:23
paint shop doing so has been the highlight of our careers it has been truly a rewarding experience to know
47:30
that we are a small part of the Corvette history as we built the machine that will paint the dreams of tomorrow that's
47:36
fantastic that is outstanding yeah you know so when I'm gone from here and off
47:42
to whatever's next and I'm not planning to go anywhere so don't anybody read into that but eventually when I leave
47:47
here I can say yeah you know my fingerprints are on that literally and figuratively based on putting them over
47:54
there and so it's really been that great moment of pride myself and my team I got a great team here I'm blessed to have
48:00
that and they've done a really good job and I think we've done a good job with the launch of this shop and with the car
48:05
buddy that's fantastic what a great story Chuck thank you so much for taking time to be on Corvette today this has
48:12
been fantastic well that's great Steven thanks for having me on and I hope it was good information for the listeners
48:18
thanks for listening to Corvette today and please be sure to tell your family friends and other Corvette enthusiasts
48:23
about the Corvette Today podcast and thanks to our sponsors wheelcraft want to dress up your Corvette with bright
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you've been listening to Corvette today with Steve Garrett if you'd like to contact Steve with any thoughts on the
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podcast or ideas for guests on Corvette today you can email him at Steve Garrett
49:18
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