San Jose Assembly was a

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

manufacturing site in

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

, outside of San Jose in what is now the town of

Milpitas Milpitas (Spanish for "little milpas") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 80,273. The city's origins lie in Rancho Milpitas, granted to Californio ranchero José Marí ...

. It was the automaker's primary factory in that region from 1955 to 1983, replacing the Richmond Assembly facility. Numerous vehicles were produced at the plant including the

Ford Falcon Ford Falcon is an automobile nameplate applied to several vehicles worldwide. * Ford Falcon (North America), an automobile produced by Ford from 1960 to 1970. * Ford Falcon (Argentina), a car built by Ford Argentina from 1962 until 1991. * Fo ...

Ford Maverick Ford has marketed the following automobiles models using the Ford Maverick nameplate: * The Ford Maverick (1970–1977), a compact car sold in North America and Brazil during the 1970s * The rebadged Nissan Patrol Y60 sold by Ford Australia under ...

and

Ford Mustang The Ford Mustang is a series of American automobiles manufactured by Ford. In continuous production since 1964, the Mustang is currently the longest-produced Ford car nameplate. Currently in its sixth generation, it is the fifth-best selli ...

. It was also the West Coast manufacturing location of the Ford Fairlane,

Ford Torino The Ford Torino is an automobile that was produced by Ford for the North American market between 1968 and 1976. It was a competitor in the intermediate market segment. The car was named after the city of Turin (''Torino'', in Italian), consider ...

Ford Pinto The Ford Pinto is a subcompact car that was manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company in North America from 1971 until 1980 model years. The Pinto was the first subcompact vehicle produced by Ford in North America. The Pinto was marketed ...

, Ford Escort and the short lived

Edsel Ranger The Edsel Ranger is an automobile that was produced and sold by the newly formed Edsel Division of Ford for the 1958–1960 model years. It was built on the shorter, narrower Edsel platform, shared with Ford and Edsel Pacer models. The Ranger ...

and

Edsel Pacer The Edsel Pacer is an automobile that was produced and sold by Edsel in 1958. The Pacer was based on the shorter narrower Edsel platform, shared with Ford and the Ranger. Pacer is one of two Edsel model names reused by manufacturers other than F ...

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

products such as the Mustang-based

Cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...

, Montego,

Comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

Bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUC ...

Capri Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been ...

and the

Lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, Ontar ...

were also assembled there.

Ford F-series The Ford F-Series is a series of light-duty trucks marketed and manufactured by Ford since the 1948 model year. Slotted above the Ford Ranger in the Ford truck model range, the F-Series is marketed as a range of full-sized pickup trucks. ...

trucks were produced there, from shortly after the inception of the plant until its closure in 1983.

History

Personnel and equipment were transferred from Richmond to San Jose starting February 23, 1955. The last truckload of equipment was scheduled to depart Richmond on February 26, 1955, with most of the transfer work performed by Ford employees working overtime. It was one of only three locations where Ford manufactured the Mustang; the other sites were Dearborn Assembly and

Edison Assembly Edison Assembly, also known as Metuchen Assembly, was a Ford Motor Company manufacturing plant in Edison, New Jersey. It was located at 939 U.S. Route 1 and occupied over 100 acres when it was open. The factory began operations in 1948 and closed ...

. It was one of the first plants in the nation to which the term "automation" was applied because most of the assembly line was interlinked and did not depend on human control. The plant closed in 1983, citing competition from Japanese imports and the building reopened as a mall in 1994, the

Great Mall of the Bay Area The Great Mall of the Bay Area (often simply called The Great Mall) is a large indoor outlet shopping mall in Milpitas, California built by Ford Motor Land Development and Petrie Dierman Kughn in 1994. It was acquired by Mills Corporation in 200 ...

. Three of the access roads to the mall are named after Ford vehicles built at the factory: Falcon Drive, Mustang Drive and Comet Drive.

References

External links

Ford Milpitas
* {{Ford factories Ford factories Former motor vehicle assembly plants Motor vehicle assembly plants in California Buildings and structures in Milpitas, California Companies based in Milpitas, California Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1955 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1983 1955 establishments in California 1983 disestablishments in California Defunct manufacturing companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area

History

See also

References

External links