1966 Ford Mustang Hardtop

The River Rouge Plant (commonly known as the Rouge Complex or just The Rouge) is a Ford Motor Company automobile factory complex located in Dearborn, Michigan at the confluence of the Rouge and Detroit rivers and Zug island. Construction began in 1917, and when it was completed in 1928 it had become the largest integrated factory in the world.

The Rouge measures 1.5 mi (2.4 km) wide by 1 mi (1.6 km) long, including 93 buildings with nearly 16 million square feet (1.5 km²) of factory floor space. With its own docks in the dredged Rouge River, 100 miles (160 km) of interior railroad track, its own electricity plant, and ore processing, the titanic Rouge was able to turn raw materials into running vehicles within this single complex. Over 100,000 workers were employed there in the 1930s.

After the 1960s, Ford began to decentralize manufacturing, building many factories across the country. The Rouge, too, was downsized, with many units (including the famous furnaces and docks) sold off to independent companies.

Not much changed for Mustang in 1966. The grille design changed a bit: the 1966 models had the running pony inside the corral free-floating on horizontal grille bars. The side trim was slightly revised and a restyled gas cap completed the exterior changes.

On the interior, the instrument panel was redesigned with five round gauges, replacing the panel borrowed from the Ford Falcon for previous model years. Ford broke the 1,000,000 Mustang mark in 1966--18 months after its introduction. To celebrate, Ford released the Sprint 200 Mustang. They were mechanically identical to other six-cylinder Mustangs, but had a chrome air cleaner and a special engine decal which read "Mustang powered Sprint 200."

This engine boated six cylinders and was used in a variety of Ford models. There were upgrades available for this engine with one of the most popular being the dual inlet air cleaner. This allowed the exhaust manifold to warm air before it was drawn in which resulted in the Mustang warming up faster, fewer emissions, and less icing of the carburetor.