Making Right Hand Drive Mustangs

[deep south]

Here in the UK, Ford are now taking orders and stating RHD deliveries are expected "in Q4". Since it takes around 6 - 8 weeks to ship from the factory to the UK, this could mean they plan to make them in September, which would be 2016MY vehicles.

Or do you think they would produce RHD as the last of the 2015MY? Would it make more sense to wait for 2016MY so we only get the SYNC 3, and so reduce the spare parts requirements for example?

How easy will it be for FRAP to make RHD models? Can they mix LHD & RHD on the line, or do they need to make some specific changes, so they might make:
LHD Euro spec in one assembly run, and then switch to
RHD UK/Australia/Japan spec in the next run, and then switch back to
LHD North America assembly?

Do they mix US & Canada on the line? Is the speedo in KM the only difference? I presume the "systems" know that a Canada spec car is on the line, so the Canadian dashboard is the next to fit, or does the assembly line worker check a build sheet, and then go the right bin to get the right part?

I guess the LHD / RHD differences are a bit more complex than that...

These are probably dumb questions, but since I placed my order yesterday for UK delivery I started to think how the factory handles this!

Sponsored

 

[mc lane]

pretty sure, anything being built after july 2015 will be a 2016 model
first lhd euro spec cars are expected to arrive early 2nd qu 2015, so they will be 2015 models...
i think they have no prob mixing us-spec and euro-spec lhd cars (even the man at the assembly line probably has no prob installing clear lense taillights instead of red lense ones)
but building rhd models might be a bit more demanding (and rhd will not only be built for uk. think of australia, Japan and so on...
so maybe the will build a huge Batch of rhd cars in one go, and then return the lhd for a longer time...

 

[SVTFreak]

pretty sure, anything being built after july 2015 will be a 2016 model
first lhd euro spec cars are expected to arrive early 2nd qu 2015, so they will be 2015 models...
i think they have no prob mixing us-spec and euro-spec lhd cars (even the man at the assembly line probably has no prob installing clear lense taillights instead of red lense ones)
but building rhd models might be a bit more demanding (and rhd will not only be built for uk. think of australia, Japan and so on...
so maybe the will build a huge Batch of rhd cars in one go, and then return the lhd for a longer time...

You'd be surprised. They can build a fusion followed by a mustang followed by 3 fusions followed by 2 mustangs etc. As long as all sub assembly lines line up with the main line, they can pretty much mix up anything they deem necessary as long as all supply parts are there.

 

[thumper]

i don't know of you have seen this already of video of mustangs going to the docks to be exported overseas:

[ame]

but the ones shown in the video are LHD... not sure if there were any RHD models.

from what little i know, canadian and us models are built on the same assembly line. there isn't much difference in the dash other than the km/h speedo and bilingual english/french warning labels. there are also differences in option packaging. workers just follow what is on the build sheet tagged to each car. i am not sure if this applies to RHD models.

this is the only picture i can find of a real non-converted RHD test car... the white tailights are interesting. i assume it is so that you can have red/amber led switchbacks to meet euro standards:


http://***************.com/106/meet-first-ever-right-hand-drive-ford-mustang

 

[papinist]

yes this video was posted on homepage some time ago.
There are many posts on white/clear tail lights: euro regulations wants amber/orange lights (in some states) or no sequential lights (in some other states) so in this way it can accomodate both

Sponsored