St. Thomas Assembly Plant Tour - Car Craft Magazine

St Thomas Assembly Plant Tour Crown Vic In Progress

Last summer, we flew 2,500 miles to the Great White North to check out a car show with just 33 cars in attendance. While our company's accountants might condemn this trip as a colossal waste of capital, it made perfect sense to us. We wanted to go to what we thought might be the last of the CrownVic.net assembly plant tours, a CVN forum member tour of the St. Thomas Assembly Plant that's been held almost every summer since 2002.

St. Thomas Fast Facts
Year opened: 1967
Site size: 635 acres
Plant size: 2,600,000 square feet
Employees: 1,508 hourly, 82 salary
Current vehicles assembled: Ford Crown Victoria, New York taxi (long-wheelbase CV), Lincoln Town Car Past vehicles assembled: Mercury Grand Marquis, Mercury Marauder, Ford Escort, Mercury Zephyr, Ford Fairmont, Ford Pinto, Ford Maverick, Ford Falcon
The assembly line moves at a rate of 60 cars per hour, meaning workers at each station have only 56 seconds to perform their assigned task. It takes about 22 hours to build a complete car. St. Thomas has assembled as many as 230,000 cars per year. Currently, it is operating at a rate of about 100,000 cars per year running one shift a day.

Here's how a Panther car begins life. Body panels are manufactured at the Chicago stamping plant and delivered to St. Thomas. Assembly begins with the floorpans.
Here's how a Panther car begins life. Body panels are manufactured at the Chicago stamping
Final spot welding of the body sides to the floorpan and firewall assembly is done by a group of robots within this structure, which is called the framer machine. The body shop can make as many as 70 cars per hour.
Final spot welding of the body sides to the floorpan and firewall assembly is done by a gr
As mentioned, we thought last summer's tour would be the last, but we've recently heard that Ford will continue production of the Crown Victoria and Town Car until August 31, 2011. The guys on CVN are starting to plan for this summer's tour, which would definitely be the last. We recommend that anyone who is interested plan a trip to see these cars before they go out of production. They are the last mass-produced, body-on-frame cars in the world and our last remaining ties to the muscle car era.
As mentioned, we thought last summer's tour would be the last, but we've recently heard th

After the body sides are joined to the floor, the bodies move to the paint shop. Tour groups aren't allowed in the paint area, and neither are most plant workers. Paint is so sensitive to contamination from outside chemicals, even perfume and deodorant can shut down the department-a big negative since the plant loses tens of thousands of dollars each hour the line is not running.
After the body sides are joined to the floor, the bodies move to the paint shop. Tour grou
After the paint shop, the bodies enter the trim shop, where the wiring harnesses and interiors are installed. Note the two-tone police car paint scheme. The paint shop at St. Thomas can do a total of eight two-tone cars per day. While the two-tone cars are painted by robots, the masking and prep are done by hand.
After the paint shop, the bodies enter the trim shop, where the wiring harnesses and inter
Before entering the paint shop, cars destined as Executive Series Town Cars are pulled off the line. These cars use a longer-wheelbase frame, giving extra room to the rear seat passengers, so the bodies are cut in half and stretched 8 inches by hand to accommodate the larger rear doors. Because of their higher part content, Town Cars can only populate the line at a 4:1 ratio. The line workers couldn't keep up with their jobs if they had to assemble more than one Town Car in a row-they just have way more stuff in them than the Crown Victorias do. Incidentally, the Grand Marquis was the easiest of the recent Panther Platform cars to assemble-taking the least amount of time on average per station.
Before entering the paint shop, cars destined as Executive Series Town Cars are pulled off

To verify build quality, random bodies are pulled off the line and brought into the Blue Buck area of the plant where they are checked with fixtures and coordinate measuring machines. In addition, 12 cars are taken down per day. They are literally cut apart with air hammers to check their weld integrity.
To verify build quality, random bodies are pulled off the line and brought into the Blue B
After the paint shop, the bodies enter the trim shop, where the wiring harnesses and interiors are installed. Note the two-tone police car paint scheme. The paint shop at St. Thomas can do a total of eight two-tone cars per day. While the two-tone cars are painted by robots, the masking and prep are done by hand.
After the paint shop, the bodies enter the trim shop, where the wiring harnesses and inter
The lead image of this article shows the chassis (frame and complete drivetrain) being married to the body. From there, the fluids are added and the cars enter the final inspection where workers check the panel gaps and look for paint flaws. See the mirror in the upper left of the picture? It's positioned so the inspectors can verify that the car is wearing the same wheels on both sides. The sign next to the mirror shows the possible wheel options. It sounds elementary, but if you're looking at hundreds of cars per day, it would be easy to forget what wheels are on which side you just looked at.
The lead image of this article shows the chassis (frame and complete drivetrain) being mar

Another standout in attendance was Pier-Luc Cadieoux with his '04 Police Interceptor complete with a truck 5.4L Triton engine and an '05 Mustang TR-3650 five-speed manual trans. He's on his third trans; he broke the synchros in the first two. Check out his videos on YouTube. His channel is P71C1.
Another standout in attendance was Pier-Luc Cadieoux with his '04 Police Interceptor compl
Meet The Guides
Mark Moran is the quality control manager at St. Thomas. He has been with Ford for 23 years, the last six of which have been at St. Thomas. Prior to his current position, he was in charge of the body shop and oversaw the changes to bring the Town Car production from Wixom to St. Thomas in 2008.
Meet The Guides Mark Moran is the quality control manager at St. Thomas. He has been wit
Gary VanderPloeg is an electrical engineer who has been with Ford for about 12 years. He is currently working in the electrical/interior trim department. He helped design this wiring harness.
Gary VanderPloeg is an electrical engineer who has been with Ford for about 12 years. He i

After the tours, there was plenty of time to meet fellow Panther owners. Probably the longest drive award would go to Robert Powers of St. Petersburg, Florida (right). He drove his '99 Crown Vic up to Clarksville, Tennessee, to meet his son, Cameron, and the two of them caravanned to St. Thomas.
After the tours, there was plenty of time to meet fellow Panther owners. Probably the long
We're always excited to see a Cobra Vic. These were cars built by Roush by special order from the Bob Bondurant School of Performance Driving. Cobra Vics were fitted with the drivetrain from a Mustang Cobra-a 305hp, 32-valve 4.6 and a beefed-up T-45 trans-and used as instructor cars. Roush also installed a rollcage, a fuel cell, and a fire suppression system. A total of 18 were made, and the school sold most of them after GM began sponsorship at the institute. Mike Callahan of Cincinnati, Ohio, owns this model. He gave us a photocopy of the buildsheet from Roush. Step one: remove 4.6L 2V engine. Assemble to automatic trans and palletize.
We're always excited to see a Cobra Vic. These were cars built by Roush by special order f
After some discussion, forum members decided to arrange their cars in a herringbone pattern for the group shot. Go to CrownVic.net for a lot more pictures and to see your author take some heat from the group. This article was supposed to run in the Nov. '10 issue. By the way, thanks go to CVN moderator Serge Drozd for organizing the tour for the last four years.
After some discussion, forum members decided to arrange their cars in a herringbone patter