See how bodies were engineered and built in 1980 in this revealing film from the Fisher Body division of General Motors.

Fisher Body doesn’t exist anymore, of course. The General Motors division was dissolved into the parent corporation in 1984, and the familiar Napoleonic coach emblem that signified Body by Fisher disappeared from the rocker sill plates of GM vehicles after 1995.

But from 1919, when GM acquired a 60 percent interest in the Fisher brothers’ operations, firmed up in 1926 when GM acquired complete ownership in a stock trade, Fisher Body was the primary supplier of bodies to the automaker’s passenger car divisions. With the sizable chunk of GM shares the Fishers acquired, several of the seven brothers held prominent positions at GM and served on its boards, including Lawrence P. Fisher Jr., who was president of Cadillac for 10 years and brought designer Harley Earl into the company.

This 1980 Fisher Body film, titled The Innovators, provides us with a deep dive into the state of the art in body manufacturing in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when considerable change came to the industry. The opening footage makes a special point of showing that computers were now in use throughout the process, starting with structural analysis. While the hardware looks primitive by today’s standards, for the Motor City it was a giant step at the time.

From there get to see the always fascinating clay, hardwood, plastic, and half-scale steel models in the development phase. And then it’s on to manufacturing, which is covered in considerable detail. There’s a lot to take in here in 26 minutes, so we’ll let you get to it. By the way, the familiar voice belongs to Peter Thomas, narrator of Forensic Files and the public television program Nova. Video below.