Where is the new Ford Mustang Assembly plant located?
The Auto Alliance International (AAI) plant in Flat Rock, MI, is the new home of Ford’s rear-drive Mustang. It’s also the home of the front-drive Mazda6. This isn’t the first time Mustang has been slated for production at AAI’s Flat Rock facility. In the 1980s, Ford planned to produce a front-drive Mustang replacement off Mazda’s 626/MX-6 platform, but public outcry soon put an end to the plan. The “Mustang III” as it was to be called morphed into the Ford Probe. It and its successors are now long gone, while the Mustang has survived long enough to finally come to the Flat Rock facility. There are separate welding lines for the Mazda6 and Mustang at AAI, though the robots on each are programmed to accept batches of the other vehicle to meet production requirements. “Planning for adding the 2005 Mustang to this plant began in April 1999,” says Bill Cumbaa, general manager of the AAI facility. The decision to add Mustang production to AAI forced Mazda and Ford to reevaluate their plans,
