page_title: Car platform
section_title: Early examples
hierarchical_section_title: Car platform / Examples / Early examples
caption_attribution_description: I don't normally photograph Beetles, but this one seemed nice and original. It was just up the road from that modified black Beetle I posted last week as well.
context_page_description: A car platform is a shared set of common design, engineering, and production efforts, as well as major components over a number of outwardly distinct models and even types of cars, often from different, but somewhat related marques. It is practiced in the automotive industry to reduce the costs associated with the development of products by basing those products on a smaller number of platforms. This further allows companies to create distinct models from a design perspective on similar underpinnings.
context_section_description: Originally, a "platform" was a literally shared chassis from a previously-engineered vehicle, as in the case for the Citroën 2CV platform chassis used by the Citroën Ami and Citroën Dyane, and  Volkswagen Beetle frame under the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. But these two manufacturers made vastly different category of vehicles under using the same chassis design at different years though the primary vehicle was still in production.
  In the USA platform sharing has been a common practice since the 1960s, when GM used the same platform in the development of the Pontiac LeMans, the Buick Skylark, the Chevrolet Chevelle, and the Oldsmobile Cutlass.
  In the 1980s, Chrysler's K-cars all wore a badge with the letter "K" to indicate their shared platform. In later stages, the "K" platform was extended in wheelbase, as well as use for several of the Corporation's different models. In the same decade, Fiat and Saab jointly developed cars using the Type Four platform to compete with the German-dominated European executive car segment.
  GM used similar strategies with its "J" platform that debuted in mid-1981 in four of GM's divisions.  Subsequently GM introduced its "A" bodies for the same four divisions using the same tread width/wheelbase of the "X" body platform, but with larger body work to make the cars seem larger, and with larger trunk compartments. They were popular through the 1980s, primarily. Even Cadillac started offering a "J" body model called the Cimarron, a much gussied up version of the other four brands' platform siblings. 
  A similar strategy applied to what is known as the N-J-L platform, arguably the most prolific of GM's efforts on one platform. Once more, GM's four lower level divisions all offered various models on this platform throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s.
caption: Volkswagen Beetle
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SX150 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2014:09:06 15:20:20", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "234", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5620", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6113", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity and Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:09:06 15:20:20", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:09:06 15:20:20", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "255/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "149/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "149/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "27999/1000", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3072", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2304", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "4760", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1024000/81", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1152000/91", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF CameraOwnerName": ""}