Make sure to buy the museum ticket after you buy the factory tour ticket because you get half off. Parking is charged at the time of admission, but I wish they wouldn’t make me pay $9 to park in the middle of nowhere in an industrial zone. It looks like a cash grab to me. The museum is feet-numbingly massive, you could spend a whole day in there, but I’m just going to cover the highlights.
Although it bears Ford’s name, it’s less like the Porsche and Mercedes museums of Stuttgart and more like the Canada Science and Technology Museum. The 1831 De Witt Clinton was the first train to carry passengers by steam in New York, the exhibit in the museum was a reproduction made in 1935 for Chicago’s World’s Fair. The 1965 Goldenrod held the world’s land speed record for 25 years when it streaked across Utah’s salt flats at almost 660km/h.
Non-vehicle exhibits include Henry Ford’s kitchen sink engine that his wife, Clara, helped him operate. The yellow light in the traffic signal was invented in Detroit when a traffic officer added the light labelled “caution” to create the world’s first three-colour traffic light in 1920, the exact light is on display in the museum. Corning’s glass ribbon machine made it possible to produce 700 light bulbs a minute, making electric light affordable to all and putting glass blowers out of work.
