Moments
in Time
1944-Rochester Products
Division
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It may seem out of place
adding a couple of pages from the 1944 Rochester Products Division (RPD)
WWII book " Contributing to Victory on Every Front", but examination of
its pre-war products reveals an important fact about business DR did not
have within GM. Note on the first page that RPD was a component
supplier to GM plants in New York, Maryland and New Jersey. Further
examination of the second page shows that not only was RPD supplying
starters, generators, ignition systems, voltage regulators and switches,
DR product lines, but it was also producing parts that AC in Flint and
Delco Moraine in Dayton were manufacturing. Also, a GM component
division in Syracuse, NY, Brown-Lipe-Chapin (BLC), was set up in 1936 to
produce headlamps, tail lamps, hub caps and bumper guards, which was the
same product line that Guide Corporation of Anderson had. In fact,
17 men from Guide were sent to Brown-Lipe-Chapin in 1936 to help get it
started. One source has claimed BLP was a Guide Plant but if so, it
would not have carried the separate division name. It would appear
that previous to WWII GM was not wanting to put all of its component
manufacturing all in one division or one place. After WWII Rochester
got into the carburetor business.
During WWII


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