How to Put a Mustang on Top of the Empire State Building

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Mustang, Ford recreated a publicity stunt it pulled in 1964 when it placed a Mustang convertible on the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

Look! There in the sky! It's a bird... it's a plane... it's.... a Ford Mustang?

Yes, it is. A Mustang GT convertible, to be exact.

Thursday is the Mustang's 50th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Ford plopped a 2015 Mustang GT convertible onto the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

Ford pulled the same stunt with the original Mustang, but five decades of technological advancements haven't made it any easier to pull off. The deck is 1,000 feet up, so using a crane is out of the question. And the building's tall spire rules out lowering the car from a helicopter.

That leaves the freight elevator. So, just as they did in 1965, Ford had the automotive wizards at DST Industries chop a Mustang into six pieces for the ride to the 86th floor, where the car was reassembled in the wee hours today.

This is much harder than it sounds. The job started six weeks ago with a trip to The Big Apple, where engineers measured every elevator and door they'd have to pass through. The Empire State Building is a historical landmark known for its Art Deco details and fine brasswork, and the last thing anyone wanted to do was muck up the decor. Measurements in hand, the engineering team used a scale model of the car to determine how best to section it. Ford supplied two body shells and the guys set to work with a Sawzall and some cutting wheels. To make sure everything fit, DST had its team build a mockup of the Empire State Building's smallest freight elevator and carefully weighed everything to ensure it'd all make it to the top.

The car that ultimately wound up on the roof was stripped to bare metal and meticulously prepped to ensure the paint--a shade Ford calls "triple yellow"--was mirror-smooth for the publicity shots.

The observation deck is open each day from 8 a.m. until 2 a.m., leaving the crew just six hours to get everything up there and assembled. With no time to waste, the team spent several days rehearsing the entire assembly process down to the minute, much like a Formula 1 crew.

The car will be on display today and tomorrow, and then the DST crew will take it apart, load it into the elevator and take it home again.

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