Unlike the Panamera lift which took place in a freight elevator with a complete automobile, Ford took apart their Mustang and shipped it in pieces, via a people elevator, to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, then reassembled it.
The stunt was dreamed up by the operator of the Empire State Building and Ford happily jumped at the chance to publicize its already wildly successful Mustang. Just goes to show how clever ideas aren't always new ones.

The Mustang atop the Empire State Building

In October 1965, with the Ford Mustang the hottest-selling car in America, the general manager of the Empire State Building had a great idea – to display a Ford Mustang on the 86th floor observation deck of the iconic Manhattan landmark.

Officials at Ford agreed and dispatched a crew to take was careful measurements of the skyscraper's doors, hallways and elevators. They determined that a white convertible Mustang could be disassembled into four main sections and transported – along with many smaller pieces – up to the building's 86th floor in elevators to be reassembled.

Three dry runs performed in Dearborn to make sure it would work. Then, at 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 20, a Ford crew in crisp white overalls began taking the car apart outside the building on 33rd Street.

It all ran smoothly until the crew discovered the steering column was one-quarter-inch too tall for the elevator. Some careful maneuvering was done and by 4:30 a.m., the reassembled car was on the outdoor observation deck and ready to be photographed from a helicopter.

But that wasn't the end of the stunt. Later that morning, the car was taken apart again and moved inside the glass-enclosed observation area that is surrounded by the outdoor deck.

Many of the building's visitors were surprised and delighted to find a Mustang there and assumed it had been lifted into place by a helicopter.

Five months later, on March 16, 1966, the car was disassembled for the last time and removed from the building.

Since its debut in 1964, over nine million Mustangs have been sold but only one ever made it to the top of the Empire State Building.

-Leslie Armbruster, Senior Collections Archivist at Ford Motor Company

What is it about the Empire State Building and generalized metropolitan paranoia? Probably has something to do with the unnaturalness of a hulking Depression-era skyscraper, forged from iron, maiden to the deaths of steelhangers and rivet-monkeys, clad in stone, able to resist collisions from bombers and fend off giant apes. There simply must be contorting fields of dark energy quivering around it, causing trouble, perhaps worse. And, as we all know, architecture hates automobiles. We reported on as much today.

Commenter Otto-Reimer backs this up with some chilling, down-in-the-trenches anecdotes, and just a soupcon of ellipticality :

So I have an office there, and my boy's new S class was dead as shit in the garage. After towing it across town, the fucker fired right up.

We are being told that parts of the broadcasting system are not properly shielded. When asked when they would properly shield it, they gave us a look like we just shat in the pope's mouth.

The best is when the tour buses die right out front.

Yes, the tour buses die right out front. And then what, Otto-Reimer? Then what!?!?

The paper speculates that signals from the building's radio and television broadcasts could be interfering with vehicle electronics. The Empire State Building has experienced a surge in commercial broadcasting since the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001.

Empire State Building Co denies the claim, but anecdotal evidence from local drivers, AAA and area residents and doormen supports it. [Via New York Daily News]

Photo credit: Alan Thinks