Ford Ford - Steve Plucker

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get his rail cars to their final destinationquicker than other companies?).There were nine assembly plants within a379 mile radius of the Rouge Plant:1. Cleveland, Ohio (CL/CLE) 174 miles2. Columbus, Ohio (G) 206 miles3. Cincinnati, Ohio (CI) 272 miles4. Chicago, Illinois (CHI) 286 miles5. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (?) 291 miles6. Indianapolis, Indiana (I) 298 miles7. Buffalo, New York (BO) 365 miles8. Louisville, Kentucky (LE) 375 miles9. Milwaukee, Wisconsin (?) 379 milesThere were 13 assembly plants within a540 to 793 mile radius of the Rouge Plant:1. Chester, Pennsylvania (CR) 540 miles2. Edgewater, New Jersey (E) 540 miles3. Kearney, New Jersey (KY) 540 miles4. St. Louis, Missouri (STL) 547 miles5. Des Moines, Iowa (DM) 597 miles6. Charlotte, North Carolina (CE) 670 miles7. Twin City, St. Paul, Minn. (TC) 696 miles8. Norfolk, Virginia (NK) 721 miles9. Somerville, Massachusetts (S) 730 miles10. Atlanta, Georgia (A/AA) 732 miles11. Omaha, Nebraska (?) 734 miles12. Memphis, Tennessee (MEM) 757 miles13. Kansas City, Missouri (KC?) 793 milesThere were three assembly plants within a1,041 to 1,077 mile radius of the RougePlant:1. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (OC) 1,041 miles2. Jacksonville, Florida (JE) 1,048 miles3. New Orleans, Louisiana (NO) 1,077 milesThere were three assembly plants within a1,211 to 1,324 mile radius of the RougePlant:1. Dallas, Texas (DS) 1,211 miles2. Denver, Colorado (DR) 1,274 miles3. Houston, Texas (H) 1,324 milesThere were five assembly plants within a2,297 to 2,411 mile radius of the RougePlant:1. Los Angles/Long Beach, Cal. (LA) 2,297 miles2. Seattle, Washington (AS) 2,359 miles3. Portland, Oregon (PO) 2,390 miles4. Richmond, California (R) 2,401 miles5. San Francisco, Ca. (SFA/SFAA) 2,411 milesThere were also three service centers:1. Washington, D. C.2. Fargo, North Dakota3. Salt Lake City, UtahThese service centers did not assemble any vehiclesthat is known. More information is needed here.Once the freight train arrived at the designatedassembly plant (or as in the case ofthe assembly plants on the West Coastwhich the parts may have been brought inby ocean steamer), they were unloadedand the parts were put in their right spot inthe assembly process or they remained inThis typed Dealer Bill of Sale, while more professional looking, does not list the key numbers.the boxcars until needed. The assemblycalled for chassis assembly, body assembly,and all the paint, trim and upholsterywork. Some of the plants manufacturedcushions, springs and closed bodies. Thebranches all operated under pretty muchthe same system, using the same standardof tools for building cars and trucks.Once the car or truck left the assemblyline, they were shipped out to one of thevarious Ford dealerships throughout theassembly plant’s territory for sale to thepublic. Some dealers sent drivers to theassembly plants to drive cars back to theirdealership for sale, these were referred toas “drive outs;” some were shipped byrailway cars; some by transport trucks,such as the Model AA Ford Taylor Trucka-Ways;and some were transported byboat. In some cases, the public were permittedto drive their car off the assemblyline.YEARDEARBORNBUFFALO365 milesJust how long did it take for parts to gofrom the Rouge Plant to the variousassembly plants and out the door to thepublic? What engines went where? Howlong did they sit around before beinginstalled into a chassis? Those were questionsI wanted to answer, but in essencecan only speculate because the shippingrecords of the various parts are not to befound, even at the archives. This is whywe have the “Early” (January, February,March and April); “Mid” (May, June, Julyand August); and “Late” (September,October, November and December)Definition of Dates in theMAFCA/MARC Judging Standards alongwith the fact that “in view of the lag timebetween drawing preparation and actualincorporation into production, and Ford’spolicy of often using the entire stock ofsuperseded parts, whenever a month isstated for the commencement of a configuration,the earlier configuration will alsobe acceptable for two months thereafter.”ST. LOUIS547 milesSOMERVILLE730 milesSAN FRAN2,411 miles1928 – 10-16 – 7-15 –1929 1 6-7 – 6-15 12-221930 1-10 3-10 6-21 6-15 341931 – 8 11-15 45-65 37-43This chart indicates the number of days it took to assemble a car or truck from engine stamping tothe time it left the assembly plant according to the assembly plant Bill of Sales.May/June 2006 • The Restorer11
But what kind of paperwork did Ford preparebefore shipping that car or truck fromthe assembly plant to a dealer? These documentsare represented by the Ford MotorCompany’s Buffalo Assembly Plant inNew York.Factory Bills of Sale, as seen below, canprovide us with some of the historical datathat may have been lost in the Archivesfire. Besides the cost of things, thisFactory Bill of Sale, Invoice numberF87575, relates that the car is a TownSedan with engine number A3308654(which was stamped at the Rouge Plant onMay 1, 1930). On May 6, 1930, the completedcar was sold to Brown andMcCooey, Inc., in Randolph, New York.It took just five days from the time theengine was stamped and related parts leftthe Rouge factory to go the 365 miles tothe Buffalo, New York assembly plantwhere it was assembled and out the door.What else does the Bill of Sale tell us? Ittells us of the ignition key number thatwas associated with the car, A891 and adoor key, A1139. However, most assemblyplant Bills of Sale that were vieweddid not have the key codes on them. Thosewere mainly recorded on the dealershipBill of Sales.The only difference between the factoryand dealership Bills of Sale were theappearance of the slips themselves. Somedealership Bills of Sale were professionallydone, while others were simply handwrittenreceipts. Both included the keycodes numbers as recommended by Ford.According to the May 16, 1928 notificationfrom the Fargo, North Dakota, servicebranch to the dealers, it related that “Inorder to eliminate the possibility of inconvenienceto your A and AA ownersthrough loss of door locks and ignitionswitch keys, we recommend that youplace the key numbers required for the caror truck on the bill of sale.” Apparentlythis was not being done by some Forddealers and in the February 20, 1929,Indianapolis Service Letter, Ford issuedanother statement requesting that this bedone in order to let customers know justwhat their key codes were in case theyfound it necessary to replace them.Unlike the Factory Bills of Sale, trying toestablish an assembly time of a vehicle inviewing Dealership Bills of Sale, is kindof hard to do taking into consideration the12 The Restorer • May/June 2006amount of time the vehicle sat on the dealershipslots or maybe it was used as ademonstrator vehicle for a series ofmonths.So just how long did it take to assemblethat Model A/AA Ford? One has to look atthe data very objectively. Was that enginesent to the assembly line immediatelyupon its arrival to the assembly plant orwas it stuck in the corner only to beretrieved one to eight weeks later or morebefore assembly? Did the completed vehicleget sent immediately to a dealer afterassembly or did it sit around the assemblyplant for one to eight weeks or more waitingto get picked up by a dealer? Hard totell.The chart on page 11 gives us some ideaof just how many days it took to assemblea Model A or AA Ford at the variousassembly plants from the time the enginewas stamped at the Rouge Factory inDearborn, Michigan, thus being receivedat the assembly plants themselves and thecompleted vehicle out the door. The datacame from a number of original FordFactory (Assembly Plant) Bills of Sale todealerships.The farther the assembly plant was fromthe Rouge Factory in Dearborn, the longerthe time it was in getting the vehicles offthe assembly lines and into the dealershands.I would like to thank Jerry Bengel, NeilBesougloff, Hilding Larson, Jim Spawn,Dave Sturges and Lynn White for theirthoughts and contributions to this article.I would also like to thank those of youwho have contributed the many FordFactory and Dealership Bills of Sale thatwere used to arrive at the data that wasused in this article including RayBeardslee, Rich Bell, Arlyn Bieber, ClemClement, Dean Drenzek, Martin Hanshew,Clif Moebius, Jerry Parr, Tom Pearson,Todd Smith, Lou Tull, Tom Wesenberg,Mark Williamson and Peter Winnewisser.This is an ongoing study. I hope that thoseof you who have original Ford Factoryand Dealership Bills of Sale will contributeyour data to this study, which willbe put into a data base for future generationsto come. Please contact me atsteve@plucks329s.org and visit my website at www.plucks329s.org for furtherinformation.
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Ford Ford - Steve Plucker

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