61 Thrift Power - Lorain, OH Plant

From 1960 to 1967, The Lorain plant built 792,628 Mercury Comets

The Lorain Ohio Ford assembly plant is most likely where most of your Comets were built. I know mine was. If you have an H in the second location of your VIN number then your Comet was born in this plant. On the Ford website, they list the history of the plant like this:

Current Products: E-Series vans
Year Opened: 1958
Site Size in Acres: 279
Plant Size in Square Feet: 4,100,000
Product History:

1958-1964 F series pick up truck
1958-1959 Ford Galaxie
1960-1965 Ford Falcon
1960-1967 Mercury Comet
1966-1970 Ford Fairlane
1968-1976 Mercury Montego
1971-1976 Ford Torino
1977-1979 Ford LTD II
1977-1997 Mercury Cougar
1980-1997 Ford Thunderbird
1961-2005 Ford Econoline

Lorain Ohio Plant Info

Thanks to Phil Skinner for this info.

In the fall of 1959, production at Lorain switched from body-on-frame construction to unibody and was the main supplier of the Ford Falcon. Production started in early October 1959 and about 145,104 units were built during the 1961 model year, another 69,629 at Metuchen and about and about 60,000 at San Jose.

For 1960, about 95,000 Comets were built at Lorain (the highest unit sequence I have on file is 894756, starting at 800001), and about 4,000 units at Kansas City with 5 cars built at San Jose, one of each body style, two-door sedan, four-door sedan, two-door station wagon, four-door station wagon plus one extra 4-dr sedan with deluxe trim.

In 1961, nearly 106,000 Comets were built at Lorain with Kansas City producing just over 30,000 units and Sam Jose ramping up production to just over 30,000, while about 22,000 came from Metuchen.

In 1962 the Fairlane joined the Falcon in production at Lorain, but the Comet did not hook up with the mid-size Meteors.

The Lorain, OH Plant Closing

LORAIN, Ohio - Ford Motor Co. said it will close its Lorain Assembly Plant in late 2005, resulting in the loss of about 1,200 jobs.

Production of the plant's Econoline van will shift to the Ohio Assembly Plant in nearby Avon Lake by January 2006, Ford spokeswoman Anne Marie Gattari said. Production of the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner at the Avon Lake plant will be transferred to a Kansas City, Mo., plant in August 2005.

Last year, Ford announced it would close the Lorain plant within four years but gave no timeline. The company gave details to workers on Wednesday.

"They've finally told us what we've been speculating," said Phil Lukegord, 50, an inspector at the Lorain plant for 31 years. "They've given us a closing date. We knew it was coming. A lot of us are relieved they've finally told us. Now, we can get on with our lives."

Ford is cutting short a seven-year commitment made in August 2002 to keep production of the Escape at the Avon Lake plant and that will eliminate some state grants and tax incentives for Ford once production of that vehicle leaves, said Bruce Johnson, director of the Ohio Department of Development.

Lloyd Mahaffey, director of the United Auto Workers region that covers Ohio, said Ford has broken a commitment to keep the Escape and Mariner in Avon Lake.

"We've tried to do the right thing with Ford Motor Co. and I just don't feel they've met us halfway," Mahaffey said.

Ford and UAW officials have said many of the Lorain workers will be eligible for retirement. Some could find work at the Avon Lake plant. About 3,500 currently work at both plants.

State and city economic leaders haven't given up on the Lorain plant, Gov. Bob Taft said Thursday.

"We're working with Ford in the hopes that there could be some new product that might come in to the facility ... to restore as many of those jobs as possible," Taft said.

Closing the Lorain plant is part of Ford's worldwide plan to improve the automaker's profitability by reducing its capacity to build more vehicles than it can sell.

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