We at TTAC take pride in the fact that we have a strong, tight-knit community of regular commenters, and many of those familiar voices come from the auto industry. We’re also proud of the fact that we have met a fair number of the B&B in real life. Sometimes, the convergence of the online and offline realms goes even further.
TTAC reader tresmonos is familiar to many of you for his tales of life at an OEM transplant located south of the border, where he helped launch the vehicle you see above. Through the comments section, and our TTAC email account, tresmonos and I have struck up a friendship that has moved from email correspondence into a genuine “real world” friendship when tresmonos was called up to the Toronto area for a business trip.
While tresmonos wasn’t the first member of the B&B that I’ve met, our proximity in age, our respective career stages and personal circumstances ensured that we kept in touch. And when I was able to get a Fiesta ST for a recent road trip with my girlfriend, I made sure to send him the VIN number to get the real story behind the press car. His reply below
Ordered 3/14/13. Scheduled a bunch of times. I rescheduled it as the ST build was packed full. The [redacted] guys had slipped it into the build without permission or coordinating with us and I kicked it out of our PP, and moved it into our MP1 build (so I delayed it about 5-6 weeks). I bumped it as the PP build was full and plant allocation was maxed out. It was produced on 7/31. Shipped 8/13 and arrived in Canada in 8/26. It kept getting scheduled to 5-6 different build weeks. Our build kept moving and I bumped it.I left CSAP on 6/18. My buddies left in August, so they saw it get built.It’s a small world. You know the history of that car and why its VIN has a higher number for the last 6 digits than a normal press car. Normally you’d see some zeros on the 3rd or 4th last digits.I am kind of getting choked up thinking back on all of this and looking at where I’m right now. Those orders were some of the last things I did in Mexico…That car represents some of the last bits of work I did.
That guy’s a weirdo.
Well, no one who pretends that they’re perfectly normal is worth any relationship beyond small talk, so that’s fine.
He seems like a solid cat from his comments, here’s hoping for brighter times ahead.
That’s what I like about him. Enduring the corporate pressure that he’s been under with his “weirdness” intact speaks volumes on his stoic character
Yeah, taking pride in your work is so lame.
I enjoy TM’s comments, seems like he’s experienced a lot.
I know korvetkeith – he’s a buddy of mine. He is weirder than me.
Like, I know! Throughout that entire build he posted nothing about that VIN number on Facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat or vine. What a loser!
That’s pretty neat.
TTAC and especially the guys on Smoking Tire Podcast think very highly of this little rocket. Smoking Tire loved it so much they bought one and now is currently getting fitted for go-fast stuff from Cobb Tuning.
I haven’t read anything negative about this car in any outlet. Everyone loves it and usually, they’re comparing it to some seriously expensive and sexy iron.
Same goes for its larger sibling, the Focus ST. Both are fantastic little cars and I’ve been seriously tempted many times to sell my Volvo wagon and get down to the local Ford dealer to drop a down payment on one.
I really like the Focus hatch exterior, it’s a great-looking car. My impression is that the Fiesta isn’t as handsome but is the better driver. Bluntly, I find the Focus and Fiesta interiors really ugly.
I have to agree. I drove one recently and really liked it. I would still have bought my Abarth over one, but for mostly emotional reasons, not performance ones. The Fiesta is probably a better car, but I find the Abarth to be more fun.
But if the Fiesta came as a 3dr it would be a much closer. The one thing I really did NOT like was squeezing my large self through the tiny doors.
There’s one parked at Lasalle Ford (as well as a Focus ST) and they are pretty tempting. I’m curious how it’d fare against a Toronto or Montreal winter, and how strong the wheels are versus malicious pothole beasts. It’s the right size for a big city, though!
From what Tresmonos said yesterday about the Ford plant in the comments section on the Buffalo crash, and this post, I get the impression that the company is doing little or nothing to mitigate the hardships of the posting. I would like to hear more about that. Sounds like Ford has lost a really good man.
Ah yes, the immortal VIN number.
That would be the vehicle identification number number.
It’s a joke, people. No hate intended.
And how do you feel about your hot water heater?
I suppose I could have said the VIN has a higher digit :)
Or the automated teller machine machine?
And for those of us old enough to remember the VCR recorder.
CVT transmission is my new hate.
Department of Redundancy Department.
Tresmonos is a tremendous asset to this site. His postcards from the edge of the auto industry are a must when seeking TTAC
+1
agreed
We will be publishing his story in the near future.
Is it going to be safe for work computers?
I hope not!
Oh good I hope Tres does tell us more details about his mysterious life and job! I find his posts very interesting, like a side of the car business (or just the manufacturing business) that very few of us know anything about, it would be great to hear more, to be able to put the entire story together instead of bits and pieces of comments.
+ (n+1)
n=postcount
Tresmonos is a real guy living a real life; not some faux super genius with x-ray aided ESP. I like and respect his comments and would personally do what I could to help him through the current rough patch. The world is in short supply of his kind.
Kudos on the acknowledgement of Tres, he’s an asset here and is always good to hear from. Both of us being ex-Ford guys, I can mirror some of his sentiments, although my situation was not as extreme.
I wish I could say that I didn’t hear similar things from other current and ex Ford employees. Both blue and white collared too.
I really wanted to get a Fiesta ST, but I thought if a child seat wouldn’t fit in a Focus, it was a no-go for the Fiesta.
I have a (very tall) three year-old boy and a Fiesta ST. Pick the right car seat and it’s a non-issue. We use a Diono Radian (low profile but very safe and highly rated, made out of STEEL), which totally coincidentally matches the Recaros up front.
Don’t deprive yourself of the awesomeness of the Fiesta ST just because of a car seat! It’s cheap enough compared to the competition that you can justify the purchase of a new seat that fits your car, rather than the other way around. And get the Recaros, because you feel like you are piloting a racecar each and every day you drive to work.
These are the things which make this site special. It’s nice to see real connections between people, and those running things getting to know those who are just visiting.
My search for VIN 00000 continues….
I’ve heard that model had a surprise in the trunk…
People are raving about the soft-touch plastic!
Thank you, Derek. I think you are one of the few auto journalists who know of the human side to product launch, and the personal implications of globalization.
That right there is what makes the TTAC unique.
I dearly miss the Mexican Fiesta. It was a lot better-finished than the brazilian version we started getting last year. The ST was still to come from Mexico, but high demand in the US is said to have made that impossible.
But then again, Ford would probably sell the thing for over 40k dollars.
@tresmonos
I hope you can get a better gig in your career that will align to what you want for a lifestyle.
But, remember this, you spend over 1/3 of the day at work and another 1/3 sleeping.
My job is sort of similar in the respect of lifestyle. But look at what you can learn and appreciate in Mexico.
By the sounds of it I’m double your age and I don’t regret my career choice. You will look back at it and appreciate what you’ve achieved.
Besides, without the bad days, you will never know what a good day is.
You sound like you enjoy your career, don’t give it up. Look at the impact you can have on many without people ever realising who made their day pleasurable, just by going for a drive in a Fiesta ST.
Too far away from this place lately to know the whole saga. I certainly miss reading my friend’s comments.
Looking forward to read the whole story.
I kinda did the reverse of this.
I decoded my 1964 Falcon’s VIN and figured out it was built at what’s now the Great Mall of the Bay Area on October 26th, 1963. I stopped by there for its 50th birthday.
I love reading or listening to stories from the factory and what it really takes to design and launch something, because the things we never think about, that have to be done, are so fascinating to me. I sometimes think of random questions about car design or production lines, but forget them by the time I run into someone who might know the answer.
As soon as I read a few of his comments, I knew that Tres was the genuine article.
I might of spent my GM years at the bottom of the employee food chain. However I did learn a few things over the years. A new product launch can be a nightmare for all involved.
Its the hands on folks like Tres, working with the hourly that make it happen. I can’t imagine how stressfull it would be working, and living in a different culture, while trying to pull off a successful launch.
Kudo’s and good luck Tres.
It doesn’t ever happen if you don’t team up with the guys on the line sir.
“I can’t imagine how stressfull it would be working, and living in a different culture, while trying to pull off a successful launch.”
It is certainly stressful, but is not the end of the world either.
Wait, Tres is in the auto industry? Hell, I’d have sworn he was a SeAL or DELTA operator based on some of his entries here.