[https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/4...-site-out.html

 

What I liked about the great pictures is it shows how Ford built vehicles. This will answer many questions ppl have here on how bodies were painted and assembled. Thank you for posting this information. Now, if y'all don't mind...I'll add a little additional Long Beach Assembly Plant info.


The plant was built on fill. That means it was built on land reclaimed from the sea. From day one, the buildings were sinking! Nothing that Ford could do, solved the problem, and in the 1950's, the plant (on Henry Ford Avenue) was abandoned. Ford built a new assembly plant in Pico Rivera, on solid ground 15 miles inland. The plant was set up to build Edsel's, but because the car died on the vine (jokesters called Edsels - Dead Sells), not one Edsel was built there. What was built there were Lincoln and Mercury models.



In 1973, a well publicized event occured outside the Pico Rivera Administration Building. A fellow who owned a 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III, drove it over the curb and up to the front door of the building, where he promply set fire to it. It burned to a crisp. It seems he wasn't too happy with the car.


What happened to the Long Beach plant? Most of it is still there, it's now being used for other purposes. It also stopped sinking. Oh well...the best laid plans...

The Pico Rivera plant was shut down over 20 years ago.

 

very interesting indeed. have to find time to go through it all sometime.

 

Yeah that is some interesting ford history

 

Cool stuff!

 

Wow, Bill, you lived through some very interesting and great times.
The new cars don`t appeal to me the same as ones from the 50`s and 60`s.
Some of the trucks are ok but way too complex and hard to repair making for some expensive trips to the shop.

 

very true Fom. the simple stuff was beautiful!!

 

Big cars with tons of steel, blinding chrome with raw V8 muscle!
Now it`s tweeked out tiny 4 dr cars-4 bangers with turbos, plastic wings, plastic chrome and fart cans....
How about dressing up a smart car for a cruiser......

 

Well for most cars its like that Morris! But someone pointed something out to me awhile back. They said they were starting to kind of like the new technology. Like you can get a 4 cylinder, or 6 cylinder car, making 300 horsepower, weighing half as much, going faster. Its pretty cool to look at the technology of that. I know I dont like the styling. There is nothing nicer then an old muscle car to me.

 

It depends on when you grew up, I`m old skool and into the rust buckets, big boats and the like.
The small plastic cars (and worse) are now and for the future I know but I`ve got a very rusty stuborn thumb.

 

Everything made today with all the electronic crappola is a nightmare to fix once out of warranty. Ppl that could diagnose problems in the old BC days = Before Computers, are now faced with myriad diagnostics, and have to "pull codes" to figure out what's wrong with the beast. All this costs money. Make 'em difficult to fix, make 'em come back to the stealership for service, make 'em parts for only a few years after the warranty period expires...makes them obsolete before their time. Most of what is made today is ho hum boring..who cares.

 

You guys are just old school. Will all this "fancy computers" you can have an engine for the street and the strip. Drive to the track, push a button and then you could gain like 50 hp, change the shift points in the transmission and fuel/timing curves. You can have a 400 hp monster that will idle in rush hour where with a carb it would barely idle under 1500 rpm.

 

I miss working on the old carbed engines where a person could diagnose it too. But I sure love the effeciency, and increased horsepower of the efi systems. It sucks a person cant have it both ways now a days.

 

i do have to agree with nathan though, as much as the old school muscle gets me going, the power nowadays is very tractable and user friendly...until you got to fix it...

 

Im a mix i love the ol school big boats and muscle cars but some of the new -little cars these days i really dont mind the one bad thing is the boats and muscle cars aint fuel effecient and what not and most are smogges with emmisions crap but i do love my ford truck