Topic: Assembly Plants and DSO's

[Skyway65]

After seeing the ’66 Gold Anniversary car on ebay-thanks Tony- I began to wonder since that car was built in San Jose and shipped cross-country to NY does anyone have info on what regions of the country were supplied by the 3 Mustang Assembly plants? 

Were there specific DSO's covered by certain plants or was it more fluid, based on production capacity and dealer orders.  For example, would a dealer in Colorado have gotten cars from both Dearborn and San Jose? 

[CharlesTurner]

I think in general, groupings of DSO's were assigned to a unique assembly plant, but due to certain circumstances, DSO's would get a car built at a different assembly plant. 

Interestingly, I had a '67 convertible, nightmist blue with std. blue interior, has a San Jose VIN and DSO of twin cities, MN.  Helped a friend buy a different '67 convertible, also nightmist blue with std. blue interior, Dearborn made and twin cities, MN DSO.  The cars were both built around July '67 if I recall correctly.

[jwc66k]

I remember a question about an East Coast DSO for a San Jose built car on another post (or forum) and the answer was - "nothing personal, it's just business". Plant utilization (aka assembly line loading) was one factor to make a profit. If Dearborn had cars scheduled out for a month and San Jose had a only two week backlog, build the car in San Jose and ship it, just to meet schedule. In today's highly computer controlled manufacturing systems the planners use a system called "JIT", Just In Time, to keep inventory levels low and to keep a tight schedule. We called it "Jam It Thru" as it really worked good in large volumn and long term commitments like in the auto industry. In the early Mustang time period, planning was done in bulk and panic, order a lot so you don't run out. It was a hit and miss proposition as plants were "short" and others were "long" so the solution was to not ship "short" items between plants but to ship completed product.
Jim
CPIM (Certified in Production and Inventory Management) 

[J_Speegle]

In unusual examples the district where the car was ordered sometimes suggested the plant that would build the car rather than where it was delivered. In most cases they were the same but have seen things like military personnel or business employees being transferred produce some interesting combinations.

But the vast vast majority of cars its just the typical grouping.  Seattle DSO was always the odd one from my observations. Often a general mix of both Dearborn and San Jose built Mustangs for some reason