65B is a Coupe with Pony Interior.

The last 6 digits in your VIN is the unit number for that assembly plant. Starting at 100001, your car was the 121824th vehicle assembled at that plant for the 1966 model year. There were 3 plants that built Mustangs - San Jose,CA - Dearborn, MI - Metuchen, NJ. They each had their own numbers for the VIN. The VIN has nothing to do with the number of option packages that were produced.

 

Okay...thanks. Based on the production numbers, it appears there were three basic production types (Hardtop or coupe, Convertible, and Fastback)...each with a "standard" or "luxury" production line (I am excluding the bench seat models). There were 422,416 "standards" coupes made (which base on my serial count, I guess I am one of these), and there were 55,938 "luxury" coupes made. Am I wrong in concluding the 65B was one of the 55,938 "luxury" coupes?

 

One more point, these plants also produced cars that weren't Mustangs, so many of the consecutive unit numbers got used for other cars as well.

John Harvey

 

...Am I wrong in concluding the 65B was one of the 55,938 "luxury" coupes?...

Where did you get that 55938 number?

If the total number of 1965 Mustang Coupes with Luxury Package Option produced is 55938, then your car is one of them.

I'm assuming your cars door data plate is original to the car.

 

One more point, these plants also produced cars that weren't Mustangs, so many of the consecutive unit numbers got used for other cars as well.

John Harvey

While this is sort of true it is not relevant to the Mustang since none of the plants built anything else that would cause this.

 

Starting at 100001, your car was the 121824th vehicle assembled at that plant for the 1966 model year.

Technically, the last 6 digits are more of an "order number" than a consecutive unit number. As orders were received at the assembly plant, VIN's were created. The actual build date of the cars usually varied, depending on the type of options and availability of parts.

 

I may be mistaken here but I thought that all of Ford's production records for 1966 and prior model year cars were destroyed so coming up with accurate option and equipment breakdown numbers for the pre-1967 model year cars is not possible. Am I wrong? If so, where did the 55,938 number come from?

 

There were many stats published each year by Ford. The number of deluxe interior cars was one of them.

 

One more point, these plants also produced cars that weren't Mustangs, so many of the consecutive unit numbers got used for other cars as well.

John Harvey

While this is sort of true it is not relevant to the Mustang since none of the plants built anything else that would cause this.

I'm fairly sure Dearborn built more than just Mustangs...

 

Several internet searches for "1966 Mustang Production Numbers" report the following:

Convertible, standard 56,409
Convertible, bench seats 3,190
Convertible, luxury 12,520
Coupe, standard 422,416
Coupe, bench seats 21,397
Coupe, luxury 55,938
2+2 Fastback, standard 27,809
2+2 Fastback, luxury 7,889
Total 607,568

It is the "Consecutive unit number" that is throwing me off. If only 55,938 were made...then how can my 65B "Consecutive unit number" be 221,824. The best answer so far is that the "Consecutive unit number" is not necessarily a consecutive CAR count...but a consecutive VIN count. That would account for the high "Consecutive unit number" with a relitivly lower production count.

 

Imagime you bought a ticket to a football game. The tickets are consecutively numbered.
All ticket sales were at the stadium as people showed up. They take a poll of attendees
and find 500 of the 50,000 had fur coats. 100 were over
6'5". The tickets were consecutive,
the fur coats weren't!

 

Ahhh...so the total number of Mustangs in 1966 were 607,568...of which mine was number 221,824. I'm embarrassed that I did not realize that...of course they would not start a new consecutive number with each body style.

Thanks!

 

Ahhh...so the total number of Mustangs in 1966 were 607,568...of which mine was number 221,824. I'm embarrassed that I did not realize that...of course they would not start a new consecutive number with each body style.

Thanks!

Although, as 6T7 mentioned, they started at number "100001", not "000001", so yours was actually #121,824 to come down the line at your factory, not #221824 as the number reflects, AND keep in mind the total of 607,000 were manufactured in 3 different plants, which all had their own numbers, too.

 

One more point, these plants also produced cars that weren't Mustangs, so many of the consecutive unit numbers got used for other cars as well.

John Harvey

While this is sort of true it is not relevant to the Mustang since none of the plants built anything else that would cause this.

I'm fairly sure Dearborn built more than just Mustangs...

ok...I'll bite...what else did Ford build at Dearborn beside 3 million Mustangs and 500,000 Cougars in the first few years? btw, Mercury had their own range of numbers.

 

One more point, these plants also produced cars that weren't Mustangs, so many of the consecutive unit numbers got used for other cars as well.

John Harvey

While this is sort of true it is not relevant to the Mustang since none of the plants built anything else that would cause this.

I'm fairly sure Dearborn built more than just Mustangs...

ok...I'll bite...what else did Ford build at Dearborn beside 3 million Mustangs and 500,000 Cougars in the first few years? btw, Mercury had their own range of numbers.

Well, just in regard to Mustangs in particular, Fairlanes and Mustangs shared the same line in '64, and Falcons and Mustangs did in '66.

 

Yes, you are right.

I guess then in 66 they would have shared consecutive unit numbers.

 

To be perfectly honest Paul, I'm not 100% certain about the shared consecutive numbers (though it obviously makes sense), I just knew the line shared more than one model many times over the years, with '66 being one in particular.
As you mentioned, the Cougars also came on in Dearborn in '66, but had their own Mercury number sequence.