Introduction


The Mustang pictured below (bottom) was first purchased by my father-in-law, Buddy, in 1986, in Connecticut. Shortly after, he purchased a second six-cylinder convertible and sold the pictured one to my wife's cousin, Ronnie. Dad died in 1994. When Ronnie decided to sell the car to finance an in-ground swimming pool in 2006, my wife Sharon and I decided to buy it, and brought it home to Tennessee.
The car had undergone a cosmetic restoration before Dad bought it, and apart from some minor detailing since then, was still in the same condition when we bought it.
In June 2010, I found out it was a Sprint 200, Package A, 3-speed manual transmission. And after reading an article in the archives of the Mustang Times by Jim Smart, went looking for the Broadcast (Build) Sheet. I found it wrapped around the wiring harness behind the speedometer. After a brief search to find out what all the codes meant, I realized that surprisingly little is known or published about these documents. So I decided I'd try to attempt to decode it myself. This blog is a journal of that research.
All discussions below currently pertain to only 1966 Mustangs.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

DSO/FSO/PTO

The last box on the top line is the DSO/FSO/PTO.

DSO has a dual meaning on a door data plate or build sheet. When the code is two digits long, it indicates the District Sales Office for which the order was intended. When a dealership ordered a car, they didn’t contact Ford directly. They went through their District Sales Office. For instance, a dealer in Bradford, PA with a dealer number of 37J551 on January 16, 1966 would have had a home office of Buffalo, New York (District #37).

If a car was to be built with non-standard production features, a six-digit code was stamped on the door tag. The first two digits still indicated the District Sales Office responsible for the order. The last four digits were a Special Order Number to keep track of the order and were indicated in the DSO/FSO/PTO line of the build sheet.

According to Kevin Marti, there were four types of special orders:
  • ·         DSO - Domestic Special Order, which included Shelbys and Boss 429’s
  • ·         FSO - Foreign Special Orders
  • ·         PTO - Paint & Tire Orders, which included special paint and special tire usage
  • ·         SPO - Special Production Orders
For instance, if a dealer special-ordered five Mustangs for a promotion in a non-stock paint color, such as a Thunderbird Sapphire Blue, all five Mustangs would have the same six digit DSO code, ie. 24-0327, with 24 being the ordering sales office (Jacksonville, FL), and 0327 being the Special Order Number (sequential).

Below is a punchcard obtained from Charles Turner, with the areas in yellow indicating the location of the Special Order Number as it was first assigned by Ford. If the car had no unusual features, these areas were normally blank, as in the case of Charles’ punchcard. Below that is an export build sheet with a four-digit FSO.


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