1973 Mach 1 Interior Seat Material Oddity?

[72HCODE]

74 pinto seats in general are totally different then a mustang or cougar seat.

the only plastic would be the seat back covers like don talked about. having replacement pinto covers would indicate again those seats were taken apart at some point.

the pinto had high back front seats but the foam underlay is totally different and they never used the smooth slats on the pinto 74 seats from the ones i've seen.

there are 2 other pieces of plastic on the original front seats, the hinge covers. they have 1 phillips head screw holding them on to the hinge.

you could pop the one off by the sill plate and see what part number is on those. if that was a 74 pinto part that would be more mysterious.

 

[hyena429]

How could a smaller Pinto-sourced rear seat panel be fitted into a Mustang from the factory?

Easy...If they ran out...It fits perfict..No dif besides where the seat lever is...No one would be able to tell unless they was a expert working for ford at the time...Normal mustang owners would never be able to tell that the lever molding part is missing...These are the ones on my car...They fit perfict...So good i did not know they was "not" Original..Till i looked at the codes on the back side.

Why would ford not do that if they ran out and still in full production of the pinto? Be easier to use already in production pinto back pannels than to remold new ones...Atleast that is what im thinking.

74 pinto seats in general are totally different then a mustang or cougar seat.

the only plastic would be the seat back covers like don talked about. having replacement pinto covers would indicate again those seats were taken apart at some point.

the pinto had high back front seats but the foam underlay is totally different and they never used the smooth slats on the pinto 74 seats from the ones i've seen.

there are 2 other pieces of plastic on the original front seats, the hinge covers. they have 1 phillips head screw holding them on to the hinge.

you could pop the one off by the sill plate and see what part number is on those. if that was a 74 pinto part that would be more mysterious.

Ok now im confused...I cannot find pinto rear seat backs to see if they the same..Don at OMS says it is a pinto part number...They are made by ford..They are on our cars...Im confused now

I will check..I dont think they are pinto seats..they still got mustang metal seat tags in the back of them..And the owner i got them from said it had original white interior all ruined thou... and he replaced and painted some of it black...But he did not finish the back pannels..reason why mine are still white.


"the only plastic would be the seat back covers like don talked about. having replacement pinto covers would indicate again those seats were taken apart at some point."

I know mine has been recovered.....But that was in the 1990's and i know the guy who did it all....i find it odd that both late stangs..His and mine..Have the same odd back pannel and seems to have pinto numbers...And are from 1974....Why would some one replace the interiors on our cars little less than 4 months or a year? And if they did replace them alot later on..What kinda luck does it take that both late mustang would show up with the same year of pinto rear pannel? I just wondering..Did ford run out? And figured no one would notice or care? lol..Till now when everyone is worried about codes alot more during restoration...But them pannels from the 74 pinto where being produced during the time our mustangs where ready to roll out...Late mustang guys..Check your rear seat pannel lol

 

[Kit Sullivan]

From the picture, those appear to be normal 72-73 Mustang seat- back covers. Why do you think they are from a Pinto?

 

[hyena429]

From the picture, those appear to be normal 72-73 Mustang seat- back covers. Why do you think they are from a Pinto?

Cause the code does not match a mustang rear seat code..I was like you and did not think twice about them...I thought they was original and matching..Till my local mustang restore guy picked them up and said that the code is wrong..Only dif is it is missing a little tiny bit of plastic on the bottom where the seat lever is...In all respects they are perfictly the same as a mustangs besides that molding diffrence at the bottom..and it is not cutt or anything...Here is some pictures of the codes from the back..The bolts line up perfict..and they fit our years of mustangs like a dream..Im just wondering..Did Ford just run out and they stuck some of these on late cars so they did not have to remake new ones?

I cannot seem to find a pinto seat picture to compare them either..lol

 

[jb73Mach]

I gotta jump in to help Steve here. Sorry for being late to the conversation. His Mach and mine were made on the same day. They have the same seat material, the same D4 part number on the back etc. Here's some pics from mine. This was very late in the production run and a complete redesign was already in the works. What are the chances that they ran out of seat covers and sourced from somewhere else to finish up? Anyone with a build date of July 5, 1973 or later have pics of the seat covers to help settle this?

 

[Kit Sullivan]

Must be the low production Pinto-stang interior option.

Seriously, that is a real head scratcher.

It seems odd and unlikely that any part labeled as a 1974 part could have been used on a 73 vehicle.

 

[hyena429]

Must be the low production Pinto-stang interior option.

Seriously, that is a real head scratcher.

It seems odd and unlikely that any part labeled as a 1974 part could have been used on a 73 vehicle.

Well im thinking it is not that unlikely..If early production i would agree fully...But sence all new models start production before they are released....Kinda how some 71 stangs birthday in late 1970...Maybe at the end of our production run..Ford started to run out of that interior part..And just grabbed some from the fresh pinto batch to finish off these stangs so they could move on to the mustang ii...Mine was 13 days behind..Im just grabbing at straws...Would like to see more late production stang pannels now..lol...And does not mean all late stangs would get them either...just counts what happend in the factory..Im sure quite a few things..Kinda like Jim's non staggerd 4v mach 1...Some mistake happend there..lol

 

[GravY]

They will do whatever they need to get the cars out the door..

Earlier this year we ran out of firewall pads for the Focus. What did we use to replace them? Pads from the Mustang.

With the cars being built at the end of the run I bet Ford ran short of the insert material and did a small run of these covers to complete orders.

 

[Kit Sullivan]

The reason I say it is unlikely that Ford could run out of any particular production part at the end of a model run is because they ALWAYS make significantly more parts than needed to complete a run, and for good reasons.

They are required by law to have replacement parts available for warranty purposes and fo be available to consumers for a minimum of ten years after that model stops production.

The suggestion that they ran out of comfortweave material does not make sense to me for a couple reasons: first, there were other Ford car lines in 74 and beyond that used comfortweave, so it was clearly still available. Also, the vendor that manufactured the Mustang seat covers for Ford also made the covers for other car lines and clearly that vendor still had comfortweave to use on other, later-model car lines. If so, there would be no obvious reason to not continue to use it on the covers in question.

Those seats certainly do look like the very early repro covers available before the current fake stamped faux comfortweave became available.

 

[mweeps]

I have to check the build date on both Dad's Mach 1s. Both have comfortweave inserts. I have seen a 73 with the same interiors as they ones in question and I assumed the were replacement seats. But we know what they say about assuming.

 

[hyena429]

They will do whatever they need to get the cars out the door..

Earlier this year we ran out of firewall pads for the Focus. What did we use to replace them? Pads from the Mustang.

With the cars being built at the end of the run I bet Ford ran short of the insert material and did a small run of these covers to complete orders.

I think that is it.

{The reason I say it is unlikely that Ford could run out of any particular production part at the end of a model run is because they ALWAYS make significantly more parts than needed to complete a run, and for good reasons.

They are required by law to have replacement parts available for warranty purposes and fo be available to consumers for a minimum of ten years after that model stops production}

Well like gravy said..They ran out..And used mustangs..And im sure that happend here and there...Not all the time..But it happens...Miss placed order..Or did not order enough of a color that they did not expect to be popular and just ran out at that momment ..We cannot assume that Ford ran like a clock 24/7 with out a hickup here and there... As for the seat covers..I dont know..I never seen my original white seats covers...The guy i got it from recovered them black 25 years ago....I could ask him if it had the same inserts or not.

 

[Steve73QMach1]

Have you tried to contact the original owner and see if he remembers anything about the seats?

With multiple cars having close build dates with the same covers appears to me Ford had a parts/material shortage or issue with the seat covers that should have been used. I work at Ford and have seen this happen over the years. They will do what they can to get the cars out the door.

How close were your cars built to the end of the years run?

Thanks for the response GravY! Good to hear from an actual Ford employee on this issue. I don't know when the official end of production was but I think it was early in July 1973. One of my Mach's was built 6/30/73 and the other 7/5/73. Both have the same seats. I purchased my 6/30/73 car from the original owner who had plastic seat covers installed on them when he took delivery of the car in July 1973. Those plastic seat covers are still on the seats. I have no reason to believe that he was not telling me the truth. He even asked me if I was going to leave the covers on and lamented that he had never even got to sit on the actual seat material.

I have had my 7/5/73 car since 1980. The seats have not been replaced or recovered in either of these cars. The whole purpose of this thread was to discuss the possibility of Ford doing something different on the last production Mach 1 seats. I think it is clear that they did. I am trying to find out when that started. I know it was at least back as far as 6/30/73.

I gotta jump in to help Steve here. Sorry for being late to the conversation. His Mach and mine were made on the same day. They have the same seat material, the same D4 part number on the back etc. Here's some pics from mine. This was very late in the production run and a complete redesign was already in the works. What are the chances that they ran out of seat covers and sourced from somewhere else to finish up? Anyone with a build date of July 5, 1973 or later have pics of the seat covers to help settle this?

John - thanks for the info! I knew if any car on this forum had my style of seats it would be yours based on our build dates. The seat photos you have are duplicates of what I have on both of my Mach 1's (6/30/73 and 7/5/73) even down to the white plastic pieces. Thanks for taking the time to pull your seat backs off and provide this documentation.

Ok - that makes three cars that have these types of seats and 4 that have the D42B seat backs. The evidence is building that these cars left the factory this way.

 

[GravY]

Its too much of a coincidence having multiple vehicles built around the same time with these seats.. You also have info from the original owner. What I would want to know from that owner is if the car was a special ordered. If so when the seats came in different what did the tell him..?

IMO I would find it harder to believe we have these cars built close together that have the same "re-pop" covers than something coming from the factory.

Back then, actually up till around 2000 most plants housed large amounts of stock on site that often got damaged or was mis counted. Since approx 2000 Ford has gone to on demand stock delivery. This frees up floor space and puts shortages/issues on the supplier.

 

[midlife]

There's also the possibility that these two Mustangs were on the assembly line the same day, and that some poor soul who installed the seats was a newbie, taking seats from the just-about-to-start Pinto production line instead of real Mustang seats. By the time a QA inspector saw them, he said "screw it, it's close enough for Ford---get these out the door now! We have to close the assembly line and start up the new one."

 

[Steve73QMach1]

There's also the possibility that these two Mustangs were on the assembly line the same day, and that some poor soul who installed the seats was a newbie, taking seats from the just-about-to-start Pinto production line instead of real Mustang seats. By the time a QA inspector saw them, he said "screw it, it's close enough for Ford---get these out the door now! We have to close the assembly line and start up the new one."

But the seats would have to be already upholstered when they installed them. I don't think any Pintos had the Mach 1 sports interior option. I think the only thing "Pinto" about these seats is the seat backs. They are definitely a 1974 part. My seats also have the automatic seat back release actuator installed as part of the convenience group - I don't think Pintos had that option.

 

[73mach1]

Mine was built june of 73 also and it has the comfortweave.

If you can..Pull your rear seat pannel and check the numbers for me Be neat to see if you got mustang rear seat pannel..Or a pinto number like mine...Im starting to wonder if alot of late models got pinto rear seat covers...Or maybe just some? Find it a bit odd another late mustang showed up built around the same time with the same pinto rear seat pannel..Which are rarer than mustang pannels to find on ebay..lol

My part # is D42B-656D633

 

[Jeff73Mach1]

Mustangs were made in Mexico after production ceased here for a bit longer, could Ford have run out of parts and brought some in from their south of the border plants?

I agree that it seems more likely this occurred at Ford

 

[imusa76]

I read on the web a while ago when I was looking for Comforweave matrial, that the company that made it burnt down, and it distroid all of the weaving machines, but I can't remember the date of that, I think early 73 or 74.

so maybe the interior suplier did not have any of the correct color left so they used regular vinyl insted.

I know Ford, Chrysler, and GM all used Comfortweave.from the mid 60's through the eiarly 70's.

 

[72HCODE]

well the more people that come forward with this combination the better

 

[hyena429]

Mine was built june of 73 also and it has the comfortweave.

If you can..Pull your rear seat pannel and check the numbers for me Be neat to see if you got mustang rear seat pannel..Or a pinto number like mine...Im starting to wonder if alot of late models got pinto rear seat covers...Or maybe just some? Find it a bit odd another late mustang showed up built around the same time with the same pinto rear seat pannel..Which are rarer than mustang pannels to find on ebay..lol

My part # is D42B-656D633

Well that is proof enough for me so far...We found a mystery here...I think something happend at the end of production...supplier or accident or something..lol...Too many late stangs popping up with the same numbers on that pannel...I was thinking it may of been aussie rear pannels too..Like from the falcon GT or something simular.