Wednesday 22May19 Henry Ford Complex
22May19
Woke at 8 to a rainy morning. I had the usual breakfast then drove about 10 minutes to the Henry Ford complex.
Because of the rain I decided I would not do the Greenville village tour but bought a combination ticket to the Rouge Plant Tour and the Museum.
I took the plant tour first. The plant is named after the Rouge River. It is the sight of the original plant where it all started with the Model T.
In 1996 Henry's son Bob spent 2 billion dollars to completely rebuild the plant. I assume the new plant where F150s are assembled is state of the art but it doesn't even come close to the revolutionary facility that Henry Ford built. The original factory built the Model T from raw materials brought to the site.
We were not allowed to take photos so there is none of the tour. From the tour you can see less than one third of the final assembly which was disappointing. The parts are brought to this facility and assembled. The sheet metal parts are stamped out in another facility.
After the tour I went back to the RT to let the dogs out and fix a sandwich. I hurried back and went to the museum. Wow, you could spend a week in the museum. So much more than just cars. There were recreations of recent times like a Texaco gas station.
A lot of history like the bus where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man.
The machinery is what amazed me the most, especially the huge steam engines. Of course there were cars.
I was one of the last to leave the museum and I could have stayed a couple more hours easily.
After leaving the complex I drove to a Costco and fueled. I then drove to a Walmart close by where I stayed the night