There’s a surprising number of non-Ford vehicles employed on the grounds of the Henry Ford Museum, Rouge Factory, and Henry Ford Academy. There were John Deere vehicles for the gardeners and a Canadian bus to ferry visitors from the welcome center to the factory grounds.
They show you two long films before letting you into the factory. One of them won an award but I wished museums would stop showing stupid PR films that just suck up time. The PR doesn’t stop there, they show you to the observation deck where they tell you about how Ford built the world’s largest green roof at over 10 acres of plants. All I wanted to do was to see the factory.
When you do get into the factory, you can’t take photos. There was no production the day I visited so the factory was quiet and the shells of trucks stood still on beechwood palettes. The tour is self-guided, but you could be lucky and get an interpretation from a passing member of the tour staff at various stations, many of them have retired from factory work.
They make 1,250 trucks a day, mostly with four doors. With a rise in the number of families using pickup trucks as family cars, I’m wondering if pickup trucks even need beds anymore. When was the last time you saw a non-commercial pickup towing or hauling anything a Chevrolet Tahoe couldn’t handle?
