Picture the modern world rolling off the line right here. In this modest brick factory, built in 1904, Henry Ford's young company designed and first built the Model T, the car that put the world on wheels. In a small experimental room on the third floor, walled off from prying eyes, Ford and his engineers developed the Model T through 1908; the first ones were assembled here before production moved to the vast Highland Park plant.
The Model T was cheap, rugged, and simple to repair, and it transformed America, making the automobile not a rich man's toy but an everyday machine for farmers and clerks. This was the cradle of an industry that would soon employ hundreds of thousands and draw migrants from across the South and the world to Detroit. Now a museum, the plant still holds the old wooden floors and posts.
Step inside and find the secret experimental room, the small space where the car that remade the century took its first shape.