TBT: Why Ford Mustang Production Moved Out of Dearborn

Twenty years ago, after 40 years and more than 6.5 million cars produced at the original Mustang plant, the Pony car was on the move to its current production home at what is now known as Flat Rock Assembly Plant. 

Mustang had been assembled at Dearborn Assembly Plant, then Ford’s oldest manufacturing plant, since its famed introduction at the World’s Fair in 1964. Built in 1918 as part of the sprawling Ford Rouge complex, Dearborn Assembly Plant was torn down as part of a $2 billion redevelopment of the site that included the construction of Dearborn Truck Plant. The 47-acre former Mustang plant accounted for nearly 3.5 million square feet and included 10 miles of assembly line. 

Mustang has also been built in San Jose, California, and Metuchen, New Jersey, during its production history, but Dearborn Assembly was its first home and the car’s only production location at the time of the transfer. The move came months after the plant output the company’s 300 millionth Ford vehicle, a 2004 Mustang GT convertible. 

Employees at Dearborn Assembly built 6.7 million Mustangs in 40 years, the last of which was a red 2004 Ford Mustang GT convertible that rolled off the assembly line in May of 2004. Long-time Ford employee Fred Galicki was selected by his co-workers to drive the car off the line. He was accompanied by Oscar Hovsepian, a Ford retiree who had driven the first Mustang off the line in 1964 when he was still an employee. Hundreds of DAP employees, many of whom were to be transferred to Dearborn Truck Plant, walked along with the car as it neared the end of the assembly line. 

“This plant has become a very special place, like a family, after decades of building everything from boats to tanks to cars,” said Dearborn Assembly Plant manager Rob Webber. “We’re passing along 40 years of Mustang experiences so the next family can build the same kind of atmosphere during the next 40 years.” 

Mustang production officially kicked off at AutoAlliance International in the fall of 2004, and the facility was renamed Flat Rock Assembly Plant in 2012. The 2-million-square-foot plant was established in 1987 and operated at the time as part of a long-running joint venture between Ford and Mazda. Employees at the plant, which was noted as one of the industry’s most flexible, were also building the Mazda6 and would assemble Mustang on the same trim, chassis, and final lines. The move brought with it 1,400 additional jobs at the plant and a nearly $650 million investment in new equipment. 

In 2013, Flat Rock Assembly Plant celebrated the one millionth Mustang built there. Two years later, the plant became the global production home of Mustang as the car was made available for sale globally. In 2018, Ford and its employees marked production of the 10 millionth Mustang with a celebration at the plant, as well as at World Headquarters in Dearborn, with flyovers from three WWII-era P-51 Mustang fighter planes and a parade of Mustangs spanning all five decades from Dearborn to Flat Rock.

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