Inside the Highland Park Ford plant

In Ford Motor Co.’s early years, it faced the need for quick expansion, and the greater manufacturing capabilities required by the strong demand for its automobiles. It all began with humble beginnings at the Mack Avenue Plant in Detroit, then grew to Ford’s first purpose-built assembly facility, the Piquette Avenue Plant, also in Detroit. As those first Model Ts starting rolling out of the three-story Piquette plant’s doors in the fall of 1908, orders were pouring in so fast that it was impossible to keep up with demand in what quickly became cramped quarters. Ford soon turned to the talents of architect Albert Kahn, who was charged with designing the spacious and efficient new Highland Park Ford Plant in Highland Park, Mich., where full production of the “Tin Lizzie” could be accomplished. In the early fall of 1910, the dream came to life and Ford was able to meet customer demand by producing more than 1,000 cars a day at Highland Park!

The Highland Park Ford Plant was more than just an assembly plant. There, Kahn created the latest in office design with plenty of room for executives, accounting, production control and engineering. This massive facility also had its own power plant, a foundry and, of course, room for the moving production line. Through the innovative use of using windows rather than walls for the sides of the plant, as well as plenty of skylights, workers during the day could easily see what they were doing and help meet those production schedules. The spacious and well-laid-out assembly line also reduced the time required to build a Model T from 728 minutes to just 93 minutes, start to finish. This savings in time reduced Ford’s costs and allowed the company to drop the cars’ prices by 50 percent between 1912 and 1916.

In the late 1910s, work on the massive new Ford River Rouge complex had begun in nearby Dearborn. This facility would eclipse any other car maker’s assembly plant. There, Ford Motor Co. could go from raw materials to completed vehicles in one centralized location, and all under Ford’s direct control. One of the first vehicles to be produced at “The Rouge,” as it became known, was the famous Fordson tractor that would gain as much fame in the agricultural world as Ford’s Model T had in the motor-vehicle trade. As more of the Rouge complex was completed, it was decided that passenger car and truck production would work better at this larger facility. During the latter part of the 1920s, Ford moved car production to The Rouge and shifted other sub-assembly production work (such as trim components) to Highland Park. The last United States-built Fordson tractor would leave The Rouge in 1928, while production continued on these machines in Ford’s Cork, Ireland, and Dagenham, London, plants through the end of World War II.

Back in Dearborn, Henry Ford was developing a completely new small tractor design, one that would revolutionize the industry. Working with Harry Ferguson, whose new three-point Duplex Hitch system was perfectly suited for this new machine, the new Ford 9N tractor was born out of Highland Park. This combination of two companies working together would usher in a new era for agriculture in America and the world, and would make the two companies powerhouses in a field that both Ferguson and Ford had wished to help from their earliest days.

Powered by a Ford-designed 120-cid four-cylinder engine, the 9N was rated for 22 hp at 1,500 rpm and provided plenty of torque to power the little machine, as well as to energize the hydraulic equipment required to operate the numerous Ferguson- designed attachments. One of Ford’s most important innovations was to cast the cylinder block, crankcase and flywheel housing as one piece. Using removable sleeves for the cylinders would be a money saver for future maintenance, too. Fuel was delivered from the tank mounted above the engine to the sealed updraft carburetor via gravity. Keeping the engine cool were water jackets designed around each cylinder to provide even expansion and cooling, a lesson learned from passenger car production.

The Ford 9N tractor, as with many other Ford products, saw running changes, such as the alteration in 1941 of the radiator grille bars going from a horizontal design to a more efficient vertical style. Other little items included the use of hinged fuel and radiator caps that replaced the snap-on styles used in the first year.

In 1942, the improved “2N” models were released, which incorporated many of the improvements seen during the 9N’s production run, as well as additional improvements to steering, much-needed electrical system updates, and replacement of a one-piece axle-and-hub assembly with a two-piece unit, which was a direct response to complaints about breakage in the field under heavy loads.

Another benefit for both tractors came from the Funk Aviation Corp. of Coffeyville, Kan. It offered conversion kits to upgrade these tractors to either Ford’s inline L-head six-cylinder engine or the famous Flathead V-8. As with the Model T, other aftermarket companies jumped on the component bandwagon, offering power-take-off units for everything from buzz saws to post-hole diggers to mill-wheels. To make life a bit more comfortable in inclement weather, the Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Tokheim Oil Tank and Pump Co. created an enclosed cabin to be mounted to these popular tractors. Supplier Gledhill Road Machinery created a complete road-roller setup using the versatile Ford machines as its heartbeat.

In 1946, with new leadership at Ford, the Ford-Ferguson agreement was dissolved. In July 1947, the 8N tractor line was introduced as a greatly improved version of the 2N. Along with it a new line of farming equipment produced and manufactured by Ford Motor Co. and sold under the new “Dearborn” brand was introduced. (Ferguson would go on to create its own version of the 8N tractor and market it as the TO-20, eventually merging with another firm to form the Massey-Ferguson Co.)

The new 8N was very well received and kept the assembly lines rolling at Highland Park. This new 8N was at home not only on the farm, but in thousands of other light industrial applications, making Ford’s Tractor Division a very profitable organization. Further improvements continued with the release of the Model NAA, which was marketed during Ford’s Golden Jubilee in 1953. Along with this model, the Dearborn line of accessories expanded to include scoops, spreaders, saws, blades, loaders, rakes, mowers and many other useful tools, all powered by Ford tractors.

Ford Motor Co. introduced the “Hundred” series in 1955, which offered four different lines ranging from light to heavy duty. In the 1970s, Ford sold off its tractor division, but Highland Park continued to play an important role with Ford. Ford truck production had started there in the early 1950s and included everything from pickups to bus chassis to large commercial rigs. Also taking place at the massive facility from the 1930s to the 1960s was the construction of soft trim assemblies for other Ford assembly plants across the nation.

Highland Park was one of the largest automotive concerns and a proud member of the Ford family of fine factories. By the 1970s, the Highland Park facility had grown to 20 structures with more than 3 million square feet of space. Called the “Crystal Palace of Detroit” due to Kahn’s extensive use of windows to provide natural lighting, it was a monument to “form meeting a needed function.” Highland Park was the true birthplace of the moving assembly line and, at one point, more than 70,000 people were employed by Ford at this facility alone.

In 1981, Ford sold the Highland Park plant, but to this day, it continues to lease several buildings for parts storage and some long-range developmental work. An historic part of Detroit, and Ford’s long history, it is a treasure trove of automotive history.  

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