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Ford Highland Park Tank Plant
Highland Park, MI
1910-Current

This page update 2-17-2023.

The Ford Highland Park Plant that introduced the world to automobile mass production still exists.  Not all of it still stands, but enough of it exists to make a visitor realize how big it once was.  It was massive and was located on 60 acres of land!

Automotive production moved to the River Rouge in the late 1920s.  Then Highland Park produced automotive trim.  During World War Two the plant used its skill in automotive trim to make squad tents for the US Army.

Highland Park allocated 789,624 square feet of floor space for the production of the M4A3(75) Sherman tank and the M10A1 Wolverine tank destroyer.

Highland Park World War Two Production Statistics:  1,690 M4A3 Tanks, 1,038 M10A1 Tank Destroyers, 1,202 Gun Directors, 9,498 Squad Tents, 19,985 M34 and M34A1 Sherman Tank Gun Mounts, and parts for P&W R-2800 aircraft engines built at Ford River Rouge.

The Ford Motor Car Company began production of the Model T in this plant in 1910.  It was not until October 7, 1913, that the moving assembly line was introduced.  This plant was in the world to have one; and at the time was the largest manufacturing facility in the world.  Use of the moving assembly line cut the price of a Model T in half.

This is the former administration building.  This building faces west on Woodward Avenue, one of the main streets in the Detroit area.

The photo above closely replicates the location of the original photo below, which was taken to the southwest of where I took this photo.  Both photos include the administration building with the factory behind.  This photo was taken 101 years after the one shown below.  What was a bustling auto plant that put the United States in motor vehicles in 1915, is now an unused office building and a repurposed factory. 

This photo is on display at the Michigan History Center in Lansing, MI.  Author's photo added 2-17-2023.

The key fact here is that the plant employed workers from 53 different nationalities.  Today, most Americans have conveniently forgotten their roots and that their ancestors came over in boats from many corners of the globe.  It makes life easier for them to forget this important fact that we are all "boat people."  I know that my mother's family was looked down on as "foreigners" by many earlier arrivals to this country.  We all came from somewhere.  For some of us, it was Moravia, Scotland, and Switzerland.  No doubt those three were included in the 53 nationalities at the Highland plant in 1915.  Author's photo added 2-17-2023.

The next five images are of a diorama at the Michigan History Center.  They depict the body drop onto the chassis of the Model T.  The diorama depicts a time when the body drop was done outside the factory walls.  Author's photo added 2-17-2023.

At some point, this no doubt was moved inside.  Image added 2-17-2023.

Author's photo added 2-17-2023.

Not only was the platform the body slid down made of wood, but so was the body of the Model T itself.  Author's photo added 2-17-2023.

Author's photo added 2-17-2023.

Author's photo added 2-17-2023.

Looking east of the former complex along Manchester Street.  This portion is two city blocks long.

About 20% of the original structure still stands.  A small part of it is still being used.

The plant complex extended to the trees in the distance.

Not only did the plant complex cover 60 acres, but this building is six stories tall and 865 feet long.  It is 75 feet wide and known as the Crystal Palace to the workers.  Architect Albert Kahn insisted on natural light for the workers.  There is more than 50,000 square feet of glass in the building.

This cutaway drawing of the plant shows that the plant was wide enough to run the chassis assembly line back and forth three times on the first floor.  The body assembly was on the third floor. At the right end of the image, the completed chassis came outside the factory where they mated with the bodies depicted in the diorama above.  Image added 2-17-2023.

This image is looking west from the east end of the complex.  There is another six story building that runs north at the end of the complex.   

This view is from the southeast corner of the Highland Park complex looking north.

This is one of 165,382 1914 Model T touring cars produced in Highland Park's first year of production.  This is one of over 40 Model Ts on display at the Model T Museum in Richmond, IN.  This museum is a "gold nugget" find of a museum that is located just north of downtown Richmond.  Author's photo added 2-17-2023.

The Model T Museum also has a 1926 touring car on display.  The Model T touring car was one of only two models to be made during the production of the vehicle.  The last Model T was produced in May 1927.  Author's photo added 2-17-2023. 

Before Highland Park:

In 1904 Henry Ford began assembling automobiles in this plant at the corner of Piquette and Beaubein Streets in Detroit.  The first Model Ts were built here.

I visited the very fine Studebaker Museum in South Bend, IN several times.  To my knowledge, there is no mention of Studebaker's operations in Detroit, even though Studebakers were produced in Ford's former Piquette plant for twenty years.  The Studebaker Museum is very South Bend centric.

Ford Highland Park Plant World War Two Products

This is one of 1,690 M4A3(75) Sherman tanks built at Highland Park.  It is located at the American Legion Post 201 in West Jefferson, OH.  It was built in August 1943 and is serial number 12638.
 

Ford built 57,851 Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial aircraft engines during World War Two at its River Rouge aircraft engine plant.  Highland Park produced many of the components for the engines built at River Rouge.

This particular engine was built for the Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon.  Ford River Rouge also built the R-2800 for the Curtiss C-46,  Douglas A-26, Martin B-26, Northrop P-61, Republic P-47, and the Lockheed B-34.  Ford Highland Park supplied components for all of these engines.

Ford Highland Park produced 9,498 tents for the US Army.

This M7 gun director was designed by the Sperry Gyroscope Company for the US Army to track fast, low flying aircraft, and aiming anti-aircraft weapons.  The next photo shows that it was a complicated mechanical analog computer.  The US Army was looking for a company to mass produce this gun director.  It turned to Ford due to its experience in mass production.  Making something this complex using mass production techniques had not been previously done.  Ford Highland Park was up to the task of making 1,202 of them.


The M7 gun director was a mechanical computer which included 276 aluminum die castings.  Also, this complex device contained 721 gears on 380 shafts, made of a special nickel alloy.  To add to the difficulty of building this device, it had 549 ball bearings designed to make all the shafts and gears move smoothly.

Ford assembled 19,985 M34/M34A1 gun mounts at the Highland Park plant from parts made at the River Rouge.  Six manufacturers of the Sherman tank then assembled them into the tanks.  Author's photo added 2-1-2018.