Vintage Ford Facts: Model T Ford Dealer Circa 1926

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Factory Lunch at the Rouge 1929

The next set of photos shows how food is produced & packaged for the lunch trucks that were deposited in specific areas of each building. If you have the book "Rouge Pictured In It's Prime" by Ford Bryan, he has an excellent chapter with more detailed photos. If you don't have this book, I suggest you order a copy or get your spouse to get one for Christmas or something. It's one of the finest books on the Rouge I have came across.

Making Soup

That guy sure is using alot of milk!


Small Pies - Good chance these were made with products from the Ford Farms.

Building lunch boxes. These lunches sold for 50 cents in 1929.

Lunch wagons loaded and being pulled with a Fordson tractor to their designated locations.

These photos are courtesy of Wayne State University.

Ford Rotunda & Administration Building Then & Now

The Ford Rotunda was originally used at the Chicago World's Fair in 1934 and later shipped to Dearborn for use as a display area for Ford products and holiday events such as the Christmas Fantasy in the 1950s. It burnt down in 1962 after a tar kettle spilled on the roof and set things on fire.

The Administration Building was built in 1927, designed by Albert Kahn, this building served as the main office building for Ford, Lincoln & Mercury until 1956 when the "Glass House" was built. Edsel & Henry Ford had offices in this building as well as Harry Bennett and numerous other Ford executives.
The black & white photo dates from the mid 1930s and the aerial photo dates from May 2010. If you look close you can see the shrubbery composing the rough shape of the now gone building. Structures have been built on the old Rotunda grounds.
The Administration building was demolished in 1997. Albert Kahn said the building was designed to 'stand for 1000 years" but that didn't happen unfortunately. I will be covering each building in greater detail in post in the very near future.

Monday, 6 December 2010

Experimental 1930 Model A Coupe

Here is a prototype 3 window Model A Coupe, complete with eyebrow fenders typical of very early 1930 Model A's. It's a shame this body was never produced. Not much is known about it, I suspect this was a commission by Murray or Briggs Body Companies as the quarters look similar to other Briggs & Murray bodied cars of the era.

Ford for 1935

Here's a shot of a new '35 Ford Tudor coming off the line....

Henry & Edsel Ford look pleased at 1935's offering

Saturday, 4 December 2010

Ford Motion Picture Laboratories

In 1913 Henry Ford started what was to become one of the largest in house corporate film production companies in Modern Times. He initially started out with one camera, but by April 1914 more cameras & related equipment were added.

The first film was "How Henry Ford Makes One Thousand Cars A Day".
Like any other Ford backed project, money was no object and top of the line equipment was procured & a staff over 2 dozen were hired to run said equipment. A short newsreel type film was produced until late 1916 called the "Ford Animated Weekly" which was mostly news of the day and sometimes travel points of interest. These films were offered at no cost to moviehouses and millions of people saw these short films, after all this was the days before TV and Radio was still in it's infancy. I'm sure these films are more entertaining than the junk that's on TV now!

Henry Ford later switched gears in film making, instead of continuing production of a newsreel type film, the production "Ford Educational Weekly" soon replaced the "Animated Weekly". Until 1919, these films were also distributed free to movie houses, after 1919 they were charged 25 cents to help with distribution cost.

Over the next few years, Ford film viewership continued to rise, however pressure from the Sales Department made the films more of a "silent advertisement" in hopes of putting the lasso to some new sales prospects.

The Ford films section of Ford Motor Company continued until 1933 when it was disbanded, perhaps due to the poor economic climate & lagging sales.