IT WAS BRAVE, STEPPING OUT OF THE COMFORTABLE CONFINES of our Ford Freestar Limited and onto the sub-zero Detroit parking lot. The weather girl said that spring was coming in a few days, but that thought evaporated upon the sight of snow on the ground and air as dry and cold as General Electric’s finest. This is the sort of welcome that greets any visitor come March to one of America’s oldest industrial cities. And yet the great exhibition hall across the parking lot filled us with anticipation. Here lies the greatest museum of mechanical inventions, and for us, a piece of heaven.
The name may be deceiving, but this place isn’t dedicated just to things Blue Oval. The attraction was once known as The Thomas Edison Museum, in honor of Henry Ford’s colleague and close friend. You see, Ford considered himself an inventor first and a businessman second; and he was always fascinated with inventions and the inventors behind them. After Ford’s death, they renamed it ‘The Henry Ford Museum’. Recently, the suffix ‘museum’ was appropriately removed, given that the attraction now included Greenfield Village, a living exhibit to the pre-automotive life of the 1900s; The American Automotive Hall of Fame; an IMAX theater and the usual rows of gift shops and cafes.
Of course, the greatest spectacle here is still the main exhibit hall where it filled us with awe and delight. On the far side, a replica of the Wright Brother’s Kitty Hawk flyer hung completely visible. Panning to the right is an actual cowboy era Pacific Railways steam locomotive. These grandiose testaments to human ingenuity made us almost aloof to the two cars that greeted us upon our entrance: the Ferrari beating Ford GT40 Mk II and Jim Clark’s legendary Lotus F1 car.
In other exhibits, these could have very well been the main course, but here they’re merely appetizers. Behind them stood venerable American icons such as the Pontiac GTO, Ford Thunderbird and Dodge Charger, all displayed in a convincing 60’s diner theme so real we wanted to order a milk shake or two. Even the infamous are accounted for: Bonnie and Clyde’s Ford Model A complete with bullet holes and a hand-written testament to its durability addressed to Henry Ford penned by Bonnie herself!
Standing in the middle of the exhibit hall felt like looking through the eyes of father time. It starts with the beginning: frustrations on early engine experiments, the creation of the Benz Patent Car (presented here in its original and un-restored glory), the development of the combustion engine and the eventual assembly line that put it to good use. The birth of the Ford Model T and A, the proliferation of the different brands and the eventual integration of the automobile into our lives were emphasized. Important issues such as the auto union worker’s strike (it gave rise to better wages, working hours and conditions), the great Ford Rouge Plant fire and the fuel crunch of the 1970’s, the rise of the Japanese are discussed here too.
Beside such prolific cars as the Volkswagen Beetle, Toyota Corolla and Honda Accord are landmark cars of another kind: presidential limos. The two presidential limos, John F. Kennedy’s Lincoln convertible and Ronald Reagan’s Cadillac show how an assassin’s bullet would eventually lead to better security for America’s head of state. The continuous search for alternative fuel sources (the automotive holy grail) is highlighted with experiments on electric vehicles culminating with General Motor’s EV1 and Ford’s Th!nk city car. Motor sport’s development of ever faster and sleeker racers are evident by the presence of several NASCAR, Indy Car and F1 racers placed side-by-side with their early era counterparts.
Vehicles that touch the heart are given special treatment. On one hand is the double-take inducing hotdog shaped Oscar Meyer truck—a design that’s permanent lodged in our minds thanks to countless photographs and cartoons; on the other is the actual bus that Rosa Parks rode in—the very same one where she clamored for racial equality. Then, there’s the original mid-engined Ford Mustang Concept and the resulting cream-colored 1964½ Chassis 001.
We quickly fill two memory cards worth of memories before we notice that the sun is about to set amidst Detroit’s foggy skylight. We realize that we’ve spent more than a good day here and we still haven’t set foot on the other exhibit halls yet. We quickly glance at our guide and we noted that there’s still a lot of things to see: life-size cutaways of the Boeing 707 and 737; various P-51 Mustang air racers; classic BMW and Harley-Davidson motorcycles; three full-sized locomotives, the Pacific Railways one excluded; the evolution of some household appliances such as phonographs, telephones and personal computers; “future house concepts” from the 50’s; and even Edison’s last breath, bottled and sealed by Henry Ford himself. We wish we had more memory cards, charged more batteries and that the exhibit be open for another eight hours. Alas, we didn’t have wishing lamps, and we certainly aren’t genies. So we stood once again. “Forget Disneyland”, we thought. “This is our kind of attraction”.
With cameras in hand, we continued walking once again. Our eyes gleamed with wonder as we tried absorbing all that we saw. We felt like six years old again. Detroit’s March weather may be harsh and cold as any mechanical invention, but like The Henry Ford, the real story lies behind it, and that alone gives a different sort of warmth to our hearts.
By Ulysses Ang | Photos By Ulysses Ang
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