06/29/2026
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At 10:30 p.m. on October 20, 1965, eight Ford crewmembers in crisp white overalls began taking apart a white Mustang convertible on 33rd Street in Manhattan. On the sidewalk. Outside the Empire State Building. In the middle of New York City. They cut it into four main sections and loaded the pieces into an elevator that was seven feet tall. Then they rode up to the 86th floor observation deck and put it back together.
By 4:30 a.m., the Mustang was sitting on the outdoor observation deck of the Empire State Building, overlooking the New York City skyline, completely reassembled and ready for a helicopter to photograph it from above. Six hours. Disassemble, transport, reassemble. On the 86th floor of the world's tallest building. In the dark.
But they were not done. After the helicopter took the photograph, the crew disassembled the Mustang again, moved it inside, and reassembled it a second time in the glass-enclosed observation area. Two complete assemblies in one night. On the 86th floor. Without a crane. Without a helicopter. Through an elevator.
The idea came from Robert L. Leury, general manager of the Empire State Building. In October 1965, the Ford Mustang was the hottest-selling car in America, in the middle of a record-setting first year that would total around 420,000 units. Leury wanted to display the most iconic car in America on top of the most iconic building in America. If it worked, the Mustang would be the first car and the largest and heaviest object ever displayed on the observation deck.
Ford agreed and sent a crew to measure every door, hallway, and elevator in the building. They determined that a fifteen-foot-long Mustang convertible could be cut into four sections and transported through the seven-foot-tall elevators. Three dry runs were conducted at Ford facilities in Dearborn, Michigan. Practice runs. Rehearsals. Because you do not improvise when you are disassembling a car on a Manhattan sidewalk at 10:30 at night.
Except they did have to improvise. During the actual operation, the crew discovered that the steering column was a quarter inch too tall for the elevator. A quarter inch. After all the planning, all the measuring, all three dry runs in Dearborn, the steering column did not fit by a quarter of an inch. The crew maneuvered it. They made it work. Because when you are standing on 33rd Street in the middle of the night with a Mustang in four pieces, you do not call it off over a quarter inch.
Visitors to the Empire State Building were delighted to find a white Mustang convertible sharing the view with them. Most assumed it had been lifted there by helicopter. Nobody guessed it had been carried up in pieces through the elevator and assembled by hand on the observation deck. The Mustang stayed for five months, until March 16, 1966, when it was disassembled one final time and removed.
The stunt was so legendary that Ford recreated it for the Mustang's 50th anniversary in 2014, placing a 2015 Mustang GT on the same observation deck. Same building. Same floor. Same idea. Fifty years apart.
The Ford Mustang. On the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. Assembled by hand. At 4:30 in the morning. In 1965. Because Ford knew that the best advertising is the kind that makes people look up and say, "How did they get that up there?"
