Highland Park Ford Plant 1913-1915

The Ford Model T is the most significant vehicle of 1920s and early 30s hot rodding, and there is probably no production facility that changed the face of America in the early 20th century more than Ford’s Highland Park “T” Plant. This is the place that Henry Ford and his boys fine tuned the mass production of his automobiles through the continuously moving assembly line, which was introduced in 1913, and reduced the build time for a Model T down from 728 to an astonishing 93 minutes from start to finish. Within 7 years (1920) the Highland Park Plant turned out a new Model T every minute (yes, every 60 seconds!) and every other car in the entire world was a humble Ford T. The Albert Kahn-designed factory was built in 1910 and very advanced for it’s time, featuring a large open floor plan for machinery movement, lots of natural light from a large number of windows, and modular construction that allowed for future expansion or addition of more spaces as production increased. These pictures were all taken at the plant nearly 100 years ago, between 1913 and 1915, showing an honest “day in the life” in various areas of production.

Even with the idea of expansion in mind, the Highland Park Plant was eventually outgrown in the late 1920s, and Ford moved its production hub eastward to the enormous River Rouge plant.

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