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It’s the most popular truck in the world. See how they’re built at this KC area plant

Inside Look is a Star series that takes our readers behind the scenes of some of the most well-known and not-so-well-known places and events in Kansas City. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at InsideLook@kcstar.com.

Americans love their pickup trucks, so when the Ford Kansas City Assembly Plant opened its doors for a rare look inside, we jumped at the chance.

For perspective, Dawn McKenzie, Ford Truck Communications Manager, said the plant has produced 166,000 F-150 trucks in the first quarter of 2024. That equates to 1,000 vehicles per day, or 5,000 a week, produced at the plant.

“Ford is the number one pickup truck manufacturer globally. So we’re really excited for that,” McKenzie said. “The Kansas City Assembly Plant plays a key role in that with the production of F-150 trucks. We have 9,000 employees here, so we’re really excited to have them be a part of this.”

The Ford Kansas City Assembly Plant in Claycomo, Missouri.
The Ford Kansas City Assembly Plant in Claycomo, Missouri. File The Kansas City Star

While the tour wasn’t extensive, visitors were allowed to see four work stations. These included the grill installation with the Ford logo on the front of the vehicle, a station where the chassis is flipped upright for mounting to the truck, an area where the truck and the bed are still separate but are close to being merged together, and the final inspection process before the truck leaves the line.

In addition to the F-150 trucks, the Claycomo plant also manufactures Ford Transit vans.

Having trouble seeing the video. Watch it here.

This story was originally published April 30, 2024 at 6:00 AM.

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Monty Davis
The Kansas City Star
Monty Davis is a video producer and has been with The Kansas City Star for 20 years. He specializes in telling human interest video stories using mobile gear such as his iPhone 13 Pro. Recently he took up an interest in deltiology which is the study and collection of postcards. From that came a new series for The Star called Past | Present. When he’s not working, he’s spending time with family, his pugs, kayaking and reading historical biographies about the American Revolution and the Civil War.
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