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Six weeks of preparation needed to bring a Ford Mustang convertible to
the top of the Empire State Building
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Ford and Empire State Building honor 50 years of Mustang with a car
display 1,000 feet above the streets of Manhattan
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Ford partners with longtime supplier to build the Mustang that will be
displayed in New York
Company Website:
http://corporate.ford.com/
DEARBORN, Mich. -- (Business Wire)
As the world honors 50 years of Ford Mustang, what better way to
celebrate one of the most iconic car brands than putting one back on top
of one of the most iconic buildings? When Ford and the Empire State
Building decided to display a new 2015 Mustang convertible on the 86th
floor observation deck, Ford turned to a longtime supplier for the
unique expertise required to make this happen.
Six weeks of preparation needed to bring Triple Yellow 2015 Mustang convertible to the top of the Empire State Building. (Photo: Business Wire)
In a world where tiny startups are regularly swallowed up by established
behemoths, Ford Motor Company and Romulus, Mich.-based DST Industries
have been collaborators for nearly six decades. In 1965 – the only other
time in the Empire State Building’s 83-year history a car was displayed
on its open-air deck – a DST crew was on hand to show off that Mustang
convertible.
“This week, the band is getting back together as Ford and DST bring the
all-new Mustang to the Empire State Building to honor 50 years on sale,”
said Dave Pericak, Mustang chief engineer. “We’ve taken the new Mustang
to new heights of technology and refinement, so we decided to take it to
new heights literally for this celebration.”
The all-new Mustang may be more advanced than ever before, but sometimes
physical limitations demand old-school techniques to get a job done.
“When we sat down to start plotting this out in mid-February, everyone
quickly realized that some old-school craftsmanship would be needed to
successfully place this car more than 1,000 feet above the crowded
streets of Manhattan,” said George Samulski, manager, Ford North America
design fabrication. “The deck is too high to reach with a portable crane
from the street, and the spire that towers more than 400 feet above that
narrow deck makes helicopter delivery impossible.”
The only other car display on the Empire State Building observation deck
happened in October 1965, when a crew from DST, including retired
technician Claude Cochran, sectioned a Mustang convertible so that it
could be fit into the elevators of the building.
Following a site inspection in New York to meticulously measure all of
the elevators and doors, the engineering team in Dearborn sat down with
a scale
model of the new Mustang and started drawing lines on it with a
marker to represent where it should be cut. The Empire State Building is
a historic landmark, with original art deco wood and brass trim in the
elevators, so it was crucial to ensure everything have plenty of
clearance.
“The only real problem we had in 1965 was the steering wheel,” said
Cochran. “When we tried to roll the middle section of the car with the
windshield removed into the elevator, the top of the wheel stuck out a
bit too far through the door, so we had to tip the cart a bit to get it
in.”
In preparing for the 2014 event, the team worked with two early
prototype Mustang convertible body shells. The car that would ultimately
make the trip to New York was completely stripped down and the surface
cleaned up to make sure everything looked perfect before it was
sectioned and painted.
The second body was used as a donor by the metal fabricators to
determine where to make the cuts and to fit a custom-built tubular steel
subframe that would hold all the sections together. The fabricators
built custom rolling carts and wooden crates for each section.
Getting from the loading dock to the observation deck requires riding a
freight elevator and two separate passenger elevators. A wood mockup of
the smallest elevator was built in the shop to verify everything would
fit. Each of the loaded carts was then weighed to ensure everything
stayed within the weight limits of the elevator and the observation deck.
“The observation deck is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m.,
leaving our crew of six with only a six-hour window to get everything
out onto the deck and get the car assembled,” said Pericak. “Before we
shipped the crates to New York, the crew spent several days practicing
the entire assembly process – timing everything down to the minute –
much like a NASCAR or Formula One pit crew.”
With several weeks of fabricating and practice behind them, and the
crates on a truck and headed to New York, the DST crew is resting up
ahead of some long nights this week assembling and disassembling the
Mustang.
The Triple Yellow 2015 Mustang convertible will be on display for
visitors to the Empire State Building observation deck April 16-17. When
the deck closes to the public at 2 a.m. April 18, the crew will descend
on the display car to reverse the entire process and remove it before
visitors return at 8 a.m.
About Ford Motor Company
Ford
Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in
Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six
continents. With about 181,000 employees and 65 plants worldwide, the
company’s automotive brands include Ford and Lincoln. The company
provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more
information regarding Ford and its products worldwide, please visit http://corporate.ford.com.
For news releases, related materials and high-resolution photos and
video, visit www.media.ford.com.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20140414006408/en/
Contacts:
Ford Motor Company
Brian Cotter, 313.322.5024
bcotter8@ford.com
or
Said
Deep, 313.658.0104
sdeep@ford.com
Source: Ford Motor Company
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