We ordered a Marti Report for Donna. Marti Auto Works is the licensee (contract #5012) to Ford Motor Company’s entire production database for the 1967-2012 model years. They can tell you everything about any Ford, Lincoln, or Mercury made in the United States or Canada during 1967-2012. What color was your car? Easy. What rear axle ratio? Sure. What day was the car sold? Yeah, even that – and a whole lot more.
The image above is the Vehicle Order Image. When an order was placed for a vehicle, a computer card, known as an Order Card, was created. This was based on what many people back then referred to as IBM punch cards. The series of punches below correspond to numbers or letters (incidentally, a punched out piece is called a chad). There were 80 columns on an Order Card. The first 11 digits (up through 1980) corresponded to the serial number of the vehicle. Other spaces provided information.
While much of the information they have can be gleaned from the door plate where the warranty number (VIN) is, they can come up with some additional info that is only in the Ford production database.
Our report arrived today and we found out that Donna was late. Her original due date was October 28, 1968, but she didn’t arrive until October 30, two days late.
Donna was born at the Ford Motor Company San Jose Assembly Plant. Ford operated this plant from May 17, 1955 till May 20, 1983, so Donna was born there right in the middle of the plant’s life.
We also learned that she was originally sent to Pacific Auto Sales in Long Beach, CA. We did a little digging around and there is still a Ford dealership there, but it is now called Caruso Ford. The Caruso family bought Pacific Ford in 1985. We can assume that Pacific Ford was once Pacific Auto Sales. Here is Caruso today:
I contacted Caruso Ford to see if anyone had any pictures from the late 60’s. They say they don’t.
The rest of the info we got from Marti comfirms what we already knew:
