One GM floor pan fits all

Question:

I have a question about the floor pan in 1960s GM intermediates, specifically a 1964 Chevelle convertible assembled in Los Angeles in the spring of 1964.

Several different floor pans were needed for the various transmission and shifter combinations relating to automatic or manual transmission, column shift or floor shift, and even bench seat or bucket seats. I have seen cars on eBay that look as though the floor pan for a floor shift car was made with the correct floor shift opening already in it and I have seen floor pans that look as though the floor shift cars were configured by cutting out a section of floor (with a torch) and welding in the proper shift hump and seam sealing the weld. Did GM use a dedicated floor pan for each combination or did they simply cut out a solid pan and weld in the correct opening?

Answer:

The floor pan was one of the largest sheet metal parts in the car and the tooling to stamp it was extraordinarily costly to produce. As a result, GM did not produce dedicated floor pans for each of the different configurations that you point out. Instead, they produced one floor pan that was then adjusted to work with each possible configuration.