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48 years ago today........

JeffTepper

Well-Known Member
An assembly line worker at Ford's San Jose Assembly plant twisted the key for the first time and my car rolled off the assembly line under its own power (at least I think it did !!!). I'm fairly certain that he was not thinking where will this car be in 48 years?? I'm pleased to report that as the caretaker of this car for the last 14+ years, it is indeed alive and well. I think I'll take it for a spin today to celebrate this milestone.

Side note to Jeremy: Thanks for the birthday greeting on Facebook, but today is not my birthday, just my Mustang ! My age, on the other hand, is such that I still recall touring the Ford plant as a kid (neighbor's dad worked for Philco, aka Ford Aerospace) in the Fall of 1964 when Mustangs were coming off the end of the line like a PEZ dispenser shoots out PEZ! My kids would argue that I am almost fossilized, but I'm not yet ready to concede that point.......

Regards, Jeff
 
From one fossil to another fossil ,congratz Jeff.;)
Take her out for a spin.
she deserves it.:rolleyes:
 
It would be interesting to see how far apart our 67 FBs were in that plant, the build date for mine was 01/20/67.
 
James: The scheduled build date on the door tag is November 18th but the car was actually built on November 12th per the Marti report. My sequential serial # is 38133. Other than interior color, our cars are also close in terms of the long list of factory options.
Parenthetically, my folks' '67 coupe was built in late December with a sequential serial # of 61582. The '67 coupe project I completed for my college friends a couple of years ago was a late November build and the sequential #s were a few thousand off of mine. All three being San Jose cars. I think Mike's (kbmwrs) car was also a January build, probably closer to yours in terms of sequential serial #.
 
OK while we at it.
Here are some numbers of my 2 cars.
- fastback is born on 06/09/67 at San Jose
- convertible is born on 06/06/67 at Metuchen
Thats both in june , isn't it ??
Weird american time and date format.:confused::confused:
 
Happy belated birthday to your Mustang! I also took that tour of the San Jose plant with my 5th grade class in 1955. I think the plant moved from Richmond that year or in 1954. I returned later when I worked for Ford Aerospace (aka Philco Ford and Aeronutronic Ford) to have lunch with the plant controller (friend of a friend) and see if we could find my executive lease car '80 Mustang on the assembly line. I remember him warning that, if we found it, don't show any particular interest in it or the "honor labor" guys on the line would build in special treats for me like hands full of hardware tossed into the doors. I also remember the cat calls from the assembly line as soon as they saw the controller, our mutual friend and myself in business suits. Absolutely broke my heart when they closed that plant and all those guys had to go find real jobs where their poor attitudes might not be tolerated so well.

My 69 vert has a door tag date of 20 September 68 and my son's 69 SportsRoof has a date of 30 September 68. Both are San Jose built cars. When I contacted Ford Customer Service, back when they used to do this sort of thing, they sent me letters on Ford stationary for both cars and it turned out that they identified both cars as being built on 2 October 68. That was sort of "carma" since the two cars were acquired by our family four years apart. Our sequential numbers are nowhere near each other because, I was told, those numbers were assigned by P.C. when the planned build dates were established, so cars rolling down the line one after the other probably wouldn't have sequential serial numbers.
 
Ken:

The plaque commemorating the plant lists "55 cars per hour" at the plant's peak of production. Not sure when that might have been. IIRC, sequential serial numbers were assigned at the time the order was bucked and the scheduled build dates were assigned. Scheduled build dates vary widely and were estimated at that time based upon projected supply of required components for each build. I ran into a fellow awhile back with a K code 67 Fastback that he ordered new. It took several months to complete his car due to a shortage of K code motors (or so he was told). When you factor in early and late builds due to changes in component inventories and deliveries, 10 days apart plus the difference of when the orders were bucked could amount to a considerable gap in the sequential serial numbers. The "In Search of Mustangs" reference lists slightly more than 93,000 1969 Mustangs built in Milpitas.
 
I returned later when I worked for Ford Aerospace (aka Philco Ford and Aeronutronic Ford) to have lunch with the plant controller (friend of a friend) and see if we could find my executive lease car '80 Mustang on the assembly line. I remember him warning that, if we found it, don't show any particular interest in it or the "honor labor" guys on the line would build in special treats for me like hands full of hardware tossed into the doors.

My dad was foreman at an assemblyline at the Ford Plant in Genk , Belgium from the beginning 1964 till 1976 ,I think.
It was common that , I someone order a new car , they could ask for the build sheet so they could track that car and build that car with the best body parts ( yes, it exists ) , twice through the anti rust bath , special attention when painting the car , wax into the hidden chambers/holes .ect ect.

My uncle bought a 72 taunus stationwagon and my dad had already the body parts aside , so when the floor arrived with his build sheet , they throw in the body parts into the jig and everything felt into place as I can hear my dad say.No hammering or what so ever.Remember that it happend in the 70 's.
 
Jeff: So what you said confirms my contention that the serial numbers were assigned when P.C. came up with a scheduled build date, which is the one on the door tag. Most of the cars were built +/- 10 days from that date. BTW, while FoMoCo indicated that both of our cars were built on 10/2/68, the Marti Report I bought at the 45th Anniversary in Birmingham indicated that my vert was built on 10/3/68. Hey, horseshoes and hand grenades.

I grew up in Fremont, CA and GM built a huge assembly plant there in the early '60s. Lots of guys I knew from school got jobs there to either finance a college education or to finance a bad azz ride. One of my buddys worked there briefly on the end of the line where the A-Body cars (Chevelle, Tempest, Cutlass and Special) were being built. His first night he jumped into the first car, an Olds 442, started it up and drove off the line to the parking lot where they stored the cars for shipment. When he re-entered the plant the foreman reamed his posterior reaches. Told him it wasn't a pleasure drive and when he left the line he wanted to see black burned rubber marks on the pavement behind him. Well, OK then. He also claimed that a large percentage of the "A" cars couldn't be driven out to the parking area and had to be towed off to rework areas. Something Bismark said about the making of laws, sausage and cars I believe.
 
Ken:

I also had the opportunity the tour the Fremont GM plant in 1969 and the A-Body cars were indeed coming off the line at that time. Two memories stand out. At the end of the line was a set of in-floor rollers where the car was put through its paces while stationary. A GTO came off the line as we came by and the line worker proceeded to rev the piss out of the engine until a loud boom, clank, clank, clank sound occurred. He then stopped the rollers, got out of the car and pushed it over to the rework area. As we continued past the rework area, I saw another car with the message "door won't open" in crayon on the driver's door glass. The door was hanging ajar and the additional message, "door won't close".............Gotta love it !
 
Speaking of burning rubber.
Back in 79 , I had a tempory job at that same Ford Plant in Genk where my dad had been worked.
I worked in maintenance and one day they asked me if I wanted to work on a saterday , cleaning the floor.
OK I said.So next saterday I went back to work and when we arrived at that place where we should clean the floor , it was crowed with cars.
So , we had to drive them off to another place , clean up the floor (rubber removel ) and later put them back.
I can tell you , we put some rubber back to the floor.
Will never forget this cause I was 19 .
 
There was a lot of drug use going on in that plant. That's probably why the note was in crayon. I had another pal who claimed that the guy across the line from him was so loaded one night that my pal made a face at him and he totally freaked. He was afraid to go back to work because he was convinced that Hal was some sort of alien monster. I've also heard stories about both the Ford and GM plants that included theft of engines, tires and, in the case of the Ford plant, a prostitution ring going on in the upholstery area. Look for the union label but ignore the stains on the seats.
 
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