[Keith Seymore]

Anybody else ever think about how they "knew" that was going to be the 100,000,000 (or 1 millionth, or whatever) car produced?

Based on what I know, my guess is they didn't.

If you have more than one, sometimes six or seven, assembly plants pumping these things out at 60 or 70 an hour, for two or three production shifts, how could you know? Sudden scheduled overtime, unscheduled overtime, production breakdowns, material shortages are all unanticipated items that can affect near term production output.

I speculate that they would pick a designated plant, probably the home plant or one nearby (ie, Pontiac Michigan for Pontiac, or maybe Flint Assembly for Chevy). If there was something big going on at a satellite plant, like Fremont, maybe they would throw their hat in the ring. Do some quick math and get close, anoint a specific car ahead of time to be the banner car (and maybe paint it gold), set up the microphones and the press passes and wait for it to happen.

That's how I picture it.

K