A reply to my last post prompted me to ask anther question regarding the production numbers of California Specials. The Marti reports show 4118. Does that include HCS cars in that amount, or were 251 more made as HCS cars? ???

I do believe that the 4118 refers to ONLY GT/CS cars. Therefore the 251 HCS cars is not included, and is a seperate count all in itself.

Brad

I believe the 4118 car includes the HCS's, I say this because this is the number of cars Kevin Marti show having the "California Special" option and all HCS's are listed this way. So if you do the math, there would be:
3867 GT/CS's 251 HCS's.
Doug

I'd have to agree with Doug on this one, seems like sound logic based on the facts.

If you look on the identification portion of this website it lists it as two seperate unique numbers though. - The 68 HCS and the 68 GT/CS.

If there were 3867 GT/CS vehicles, then shouldn't the GT/CS owner start claiming that number being its lower?

Someone earlier stated that Kevin Marti listed the HCS option in a smaller other part of the Marti Report. It seems that he should be able to identify the difference between a GT/CS and HCS - being that somewhere along the way the 251 HCS produced were identified as HCS and the GT/CS were uniquely identified as a GT/CS.

If Kevin Marti drew the number 251 - he had to identify those vehicles. Why then would he include the 251 in the GT/CS count? If he could uniquely identify those.

I think you see where I'm going here...if the 4118 was both combined, Kevin Marti would most likely have subtracted that number long ago to give an accurate GT/CS account.

Brad

Now I can not guarentee this (if I was in the states I would just call Kevin) but the only way Kevin knew the number of HCS's where to look at those cars with the "California Special" option and with a DSO of 51, I believe the words "HCS" on the reports is something that Kevin adds and is not a part of the actual VIN break-out.

You could be right that he already subtracted the numbers, but I don't think he did.

I guess we need Paul to pipe in here, or someone call Kevin, by the way he has no problem discussing the clarification of his data with you.

Doug

Under the statistics portion of the deluxe Marti report it states that my car is one of 4117
ordered with California Special. The report also states the car was ordered with the Caifornia Special option in an option area slightly above the signature. As I stated in a prior reply it says above Kevins signature and I qoute " This Mustang is actually a High Country Special. Your car was actually produced on July 2, 1968- fifteen days ahead of schedule." So it seems to me that the HCS number is included in the total and is not seperate.
Now I'm puzzled with the fact that my report lists the total GT/CS production was 4117 and the number listed on the site is 4118. My report is almost 4yrs old.

Okay...I'll "pipe in" here...

In my research, the HCS was a separate deal made in the late spring to send some of the GT/CS cars to Colorado, more specifically, the Denver district, DSO 51. If you look closely at your HCS invoice, you'll see a "71" number buried within another number at the right bottom of the window sticker. This meant that the L.A. district made a deal to send cars.

What that means in "Ford-Dealer-ese" is that the HCS cars ARE GT/CS cars sent to Denver WITHOUT script, and NO stripes on the scoop. Easy to do at the factory (although they complained). That may be why Marti's report says "GT/CS", when it's a HCS. The HCS was kind of a last minute deal to get some cars out for sale, since the GT/CS really didn't take off immediately. So...since Colo. dealers did the HCS for '66 and '67, they had some marketing clout. It's easier to call it that on Ford paperwork, then to get into explaining what happened with the Colo. Ford Dealer's Assn., etc..

SOoo.....We need to get someone to nail down from Marti EXACTLY what the number is. Is it 4118, 4117? and are the 251 '68 HCS cars INCLUDED in that GT/CS total number or not? We need to know exactly how many of the (Ford named) "GT/CS" (actually HCS) cars have a DSO 51 designation. If the number is lower--that could affect values.

I hope this helps....

Paul.

I have tried to talk with Kevin Marti on 2 occaions now about these issues. The person who answers the phone insists that we fax our reports in with a letter stating the questions. I cannot get Kevin on the phone on this matter. Maybe someone else might have better luck reaching him that I have had. I for one will send in mine for possible answers to our qustions. ::)

68sunlitgold is right on the money. :)

Here's the reply from Kevin Marti. This should help clear up the issue I think. It also explains why some HCS reports have a note about them being HCS and others don't. I'll revise the "identification" section of this site to note that the HCS is included in the GT/CS total of 4118.


Jon,

Early reports have 4117. Another car was found in the database in which an error in data entry originally left it out of the search routine. We did determine it belonged as a CS, so now we officially report the total as 4118. The HCS are included with the CS. Since Ford did not distinguish between the HCS and the CS, the program doesn't. But when I notice the 51DSO in the reports, I add the HCS option to the report, but it is a manual operation.

Thank you,
Marti Auto Works
www.martiauto.com

Thanks for the info Jon, that sure clears things up in regards to the question I had

Thanks Jon.

Gary 8)

My Marti Report is from Feb 04 and it seems they have stopped putting total production numbers on the report. No were on my report does it show 4,118. These are the Figures shown under Statistics:

Your car was one of:
12,491 with this paint code
2,891 with these paint/trim codes
1,194 with these Engine/Transmission Codes
6,218 Ordered from this DSO
4,766 with GT Equipment Group

For the 1968 Mustang Hardtop

In the options listing of the report it clearly states "California Special".

Now I'm confussed, would be nice if these folks could really nail down the correct number of cars. Looks to me like there could be a problem with there data base. I don't know.


Don ??? ??? ???

Now I'm confussed, would be nice if these folks could really nail down the correct number of cars. Looks to me like there could be a problem with there data base. I don't know. It seems to me the number is nailed down at 4118 per Kevin's response above. There was a Ford database error with 1 car which has been corrected.

Don,
I think the number is nailed down to 4118. I believe the problem is how many items Kevin includes in the "Your car was one of" area, which I believe is only "5". It seems that the first 4 items are standard and the 5th one is the wild card and since your car is a "GT" he included that instead of the numbers for the CS. Give him a call and ask him.

Doug