2025

by Ron Alpern
Images Courtesy of the Reuther Library at Wayne State University and the Detroit Historical Society
Published 9.17.2025

The Cadillac Clark Street Plant Body Drop in the 1970s.

The oversized shadow that Detroit cast over the emergence of the auto industry in the 20^th century presents a challenge for those trying to interpret and preserve that legacy. The era’s depth and complexity have made it a particularly daunting task for the volunteers and scholars who developed, over more than a decade, the Southwest Detroit Auto Heritage Guide, a feature of the MotorCities website now live at https://www.motorcities.org/southwest-detroit-auto-heritage-guide.

The Guide seeks to introduce the innovations of auto pioneers and challenges faced by manufacturers in a dynamic, volatile industry to students, residents, and tourists alike. It pays tribute to those who relocated from near and far to work in its factories, as well as those whose helped revitalize organized labor in the era following the Great Depression. The Guide also offers researchers, auto enthusiasts, and union activists a wealth of detail often overlooked in accounts that focus on Detroit at large, rather than on a single neighborhood.

The Guide’s introductory profiles, essays, videos and links to other sources attempt to do justice to the Motor City legacy. As visitors explore those resources, we hope they will consider ways they can aid the effort to add more stories of the people, places, and things that deserve to be added to the site.

Auto Heritage Guide Features

Firms & Sites: Recommendations found at the beginning of this section offer a path through the Guide that traces, in chronological order, the first half of Detroit’s first auto century. American Car & Foundry, the nation’s largest producer of railcars in the latter part of the 19^th century, was located on the site of what became General Motors’ Cadillac Clark Street operations. In the months before the crash of 1929, the Employer Association of Detroit’s “Labor Barometer” payroll report noted that 105,000 workers labored at Ford Motor Campany’s Rouge complex and Lincoln Motors operations. The combined employment at Graham-Paige, Michigan Copper & Brass, and Timken Detroit Axle surpassed 8,500. GM’s Clark St Cadillac facility employed more than 5,500, while the Fleetwood and Ternstedt operations comprised a substantial portion of GM’s Fisher Body’s citywide payroll of more than 16,000 employees.

Other posts trace Ford’s evolution from the world’s first vertically integrated auto industrial operation in the 1930s through seven decades later, when its Rouge Assembly plant was turned into an example of ecofriendly, sustainable manufacturing. The Michigan Central Station profile reminds us that the Station in its heyday could be regarded as Detroit’s Ellis Island for the thousands from throughout the country and world who sought work here during the auto boom years. Ford’s billion-dollar commitment to transform the Station, which had been abandoned for almost five decades, into the hub of its effort to develop autonomous vehicles is also described.

Arrivals at Michigan Central 3 Arrivals at the Michigan Central Station, date unknown.

Those posts and the profile of the supply chain management firm The James Group International underscore the continuing commitment that manufacturers are making to the area. We extend an open invitation to other auto businesses to collaborate on additional histories that belong in this section.

Community History: The Guide’s essays in this section provide additional context. They chronicle the area’s 19th century industrial roots, the early years of the auto boom, and the challenges facing the industry since the end of World War II. They also focus on neighborhood events that figured prominently in transforming Detroit from a bastion of anti-unionism into one of America’s premier union towns in the 1930s and beyond. The most recent additions highlight the ties of African Americans, Latino/as and Native Americans to the auto industry. The Guide hopes to expand those discussions to explore the neighborhood’s Arab American, Irish, Italian, Maltese, and Polish/Eastern European residents. The Guide’s initial version of the “Disinvestment and Revitalization” essay also welcomes anyone interested in developing items referenced there.

Labor Roots: While many of the posts in this section are linked to other sections of the Guide, this is where people interested in the neighborhood’s labor history can find discussions of the 1932 Ford Hunger March protest, the sit-down strikes and organizing campaigns that launched the United Automobile Workers’ union, and the career of Walter Reuther in the decades prior to World War II.

The We “Auto” Know More section features a list of auto-related companies, labor unions, and cultural communities whose contributions to the history of Southwest Detroit have yet to be developed. New volunteers can email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to discuss ways they can aid with future posts that highlight entities noted here.

Finally, Help Build the Guide introduces contributors to the Guide.

Explore the Auto Heritage Guide at www.motorcities.org/southwest-detroit-auto-heritage-guide.

By Robert Tate, Award-Winning Automotive Historian and Researcher
Images Courtesy of Stellantis Chrysler Archives
Published 9.10.2025

by Brian Yopp, MotorCities' Deputy Director
Images Courtesy of the Gilmore Car Museum
Published 9.3.2025

Gilmore Garage Works group shot A recent group shot of the students and mentors participating in the Gilmore Garage Works program.

From some people's perspectives, cars provide pure utility. They can get you from Point A to Point B. For others, classic cars provide entertainment or recreation as a nice weekend hobby.

In the case of Gilmore Garage Works, cars can provide invaluable life lessons.

An earlier group of participants in the Gilmore Garage Works program

In 2012, MotorCities supported a grant to the Gilmore Car Museum to connect at-risk, Kalamazoo-area high school students with local mentors as they worked together on classic automobiles. The incentive was that you needed to remain enrolled in school in order to continue in the after-school vehicle restoration program. What the students learned about body repair and internal combustion engines paled in comparison to what they learned from auto engineers and other professionals serving as mentors from their community who showed them a world of possibilities.

A recent student participant in the program

After a brief interruption to the COVID pandemic, the program has expanded and continues to be a success. Many students who have graduated from the program have returned to act as professional mentors.

According to the Gilmore Car Museum's Director of Education, Fred Colgren, this program has filled a void regarding student access to traditional auto shop classes that used to exist at many high schools, but now are relegated to vocational education centers at the Intermediate School District (ISD) level -- if they exist at all. Students come to the Gilmore Garage Works building on the museum's campus twice a week after school from September through June and work with a mentor to develop a variety of skills, including engine building, repairs and welding. They work on restoring actual vehicles from the Gilmore's extensive collection of cars, trucks and motorcycles.

The Gilmore Garage Works building

Gilmore Garage Works is hosting an upcoming Open House on Tuesday, September 23 where parents and students can tour the building, meet their future mentors and learn more about the specifics of the program.

I recently made the trip to Hickory Corners in Kalamazoo County to the Gilmore Car Museum's campus to speak with Colgren, Program Manager John Chapman, and Eli and Conner -- two recent participants in the program. You can watch the interview here.

MotorCities Deputy Director Brian Yopp (center), flanked by the Gilmore Car Museum's Director of Education Fred Colgren and Garage Works Manager John Chapman (left) and students Eli and Conner (right)

MotorCities has also launched a new page on our website to spotlight amazing programs taking place at our partners. Gilmore Garage Works is the first program featured, and we will add new stories quarterly. You can find the new page by clicking here.

by A. Wayne Ferens
Images Courtesy of the Ferens Collection, Motor Trend, and Road & Track
Published 8.27.2025

A view from above of the Ford GT 90 concept

Today's super cars are so advanced in engineering and technology -- even the word “exotic” is passe’. Words describing these new ultra-machines being tossed around the car industry include adjectives like extreme, hyper, super, or super-hyper. Yes, these new “exotics” are probably all of those things and more.

Look at some of today's “extreme machines” and see what they have in common -- those super Ferrari limited models like the LaFerrari, Lamborghini Veneno, Koenigsegg Regera, McLaren Senna, Bugatti Veyron and Pagani Zonda to name a few. For starters, all use advanced construction materials like carbon-fiber, high-strength aluminum, magnesium, titanium and other exotic materials. Most are hand-assembled using advanced structural adhesives or welding techniques. When automation is used, it is of the highest-tech most advanced computer controlled robotic manufacturing processes known to man.

When it comes to hyper-performance, many use radically designed V8s, V12s even V or W-16 cylinder engines with multi-valves, multi-cams, multi-turbos, etc. Some are even using advanced hi-tech hybrid systems that produce four-figure horsepower levels from their power units. Many of these super cars are not evolutionary, but revolutionary to say the least. So, when did this "hyper-revolution" start and who started it? Let's take a look back to the 1990s.

A front end view of the Ford GT 90 concept

One car comes to mind -- the Ford GT. No, not the early welded steel/fiberglass, cast iron carbureted V8 GT40 from the 1960s, but Ford's hyper-super-exotic concept car built in 1995 known as the GT-90. Some call it the greatest concept GT car ever made. Yes, it was made to run and drive. When a large high-volume automobile company like Ford Motor Company invests hundreds of thousands, even millions (estimates of $3-million for the GT-90) into a “dream car,” one must dream down the road so to speak.

Starting with some super car basics -- as used in the then Ford-owned Jaguar, as in Jaguar XJ-220 -- Ford laid the foundation of the GT-90 on the XJs chassis and suspension, and also used the Jag’s smooth shifting five-speed manual transmission.

The cockpit of the Ford GT 90 concept

Ford molded it's “New Edge” designed body out of exotic and very expensive hand-laid, light-weight, high-strength, carbon-fiber material. This 3,200 lb. super car had subtle styling details reminiscent of the original GT40, especially on the front of the vehicle.

A rear view of the Ford GT 90 concept

To give it that mind-blowing super hi-performance, Ford sliced and diced two of its modular 4.6-liter fuel-injected V8s as used in the Lincoln and created a 6.0-liter DOHC 48 valve, quad-turbo (Garrett T2s) aluminum V-12 -- pumping out 720 horsepower and 660 lb. ft. of torque from its mid-engined power unit. Other hi-tech features included touch-panel entry, passing car sensors, speed-activated air dam and a gorgeous spacious blue oval-colored interior with individual gauge pods and a multi-control center console.

The powerful engine that drove the concept to high-performance heights

First debuted at the 1995 Detroit Auto Show, the Ford GT-90 super car became an instant sensation. On the track, it produced performance numbers in the range of 0 - 100 mph in six seconds and a top speed of 230 mph. If the super or hyper name fits, wear it!

Ford never intended to put the car into production, but the company continued the “New Edge” design through the 2000s on many of its popular production models. Was this just a styling exercise, or did Ford secretly intend to build an exotic super performance hyper-car? I mean a ultra-super-performance-exotic-hyper car like the new Ford GT that can be purchased through special order -- in limited numbers of course ...

Bibliography

Motor Trend, December 1, 1995

Road & Track, April 1995

By Robert Tate, Award-Winning Automotive Historian and Researcher
Images Courtesy of General Motors Heritage Archives, Spotlight Hobbies Inc. and Barrett-Jackson Auction Company
Published 8.20.2025

By Robert Tate, Award-Winning Automotive Historian and Researcher
Images Courtesy of the Pebble Beach Concours d’ Elegance, Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum, Black Hawk Museum and Ruxton Automotive Archives
Published 8.13.2025

By Robert Tate, Award-Winning Automotive Historian and Researcher
Images courtesy of the Stellantis Chrysler Archives and General Motors Heritage Archives
Published 8.6.2025

By Jeffrey D. Brasie
Images Courtesy of Checker Motor Cars and the Checker Car Club of America
Published 7.30.2025

By Robert Tate, Award-Winning Automotive Historian and Researcher
Images Courtesy of the Stellantis Chrysler Archives
Published 7.23.2025

By Robert Tate, Award-Winning Historian and Researcher
Images Courtesy of the General Motors Heritage Archives
Published 7.16.2025

By Robert Tate, Award-Winning Automotive Historian and Researcher
Images Courtesy of the Robert Tate Collection
Published 7.9.2025

by A. Wayne Ferens
Images Courtesy of the Ferens Collection
Published 7.2.2025

by A. Wayne Ferens
Images Courtesy of Ford Motor Company, The Henry Ford, the Ferens Collection and the Nixon Library & Museum
Published 6.25.2025

2025

Exploring Southwest Detroit's Industrial Legacy

Chrysler Had Great Success with Their Muscle Car Advertising

Gilmore Garage Works: Training the Next Generation

Remembering the 1995 Ford GT-90 Concept

Remembering the Great-Looking 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle

Remembering the Rare Ruxton Automobiles

Bryan Nesbitt Becomes General Motors' 8th Head of Design

Checker Cab's Michigan Connection

The 1941 Chrysler Thunderbolt was an Early Concept Model

Remembering the Chevrolet Vega

Inside Facts on the 1951 Studebaker Line

Remembering Racing Engineer Phil Remington

Lincoln for President

Remembering "Mr. Corvette," Engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov

Remembering Edsel Ford's Lincoln Designs from the 1940s

Remembering American Motors' Class of 1967

Mid-Century American Vehicles Named After Fish

Remembering the 1969 Mustang Shelby GT 350/500 Models

Stellantis to Celebrate 100 Years of Chrysler History

Remembering Bill Porter, Great GM Designer & Auto Historian

Ford's Engine That Could

Remembering the Oldsmobile Aerotech Concept by Ed Welburn

Early Chevy Corvette Advertising Was Great for Framing

Remembering Moulton B. Taylor, Creator of the Flying Aerocar

Remembering the 1970 Mercury Cougar "El Gato" Show Car

Remembering Detroit's Automotive "Golden Jubilee" in 1946

The Cord Automobiles Offered the Best Designs & Great Ads

Remembering the Great Automotive Artist, Peter Helck

Remembering the Pontiac Fiero, an Exciting Automobile

Remembering the Ford Pantera

The 1960 Plymouth XNR was a Classic Concept by Virgil Exner

Remembering General Motors' Class of 1967, a Very Good Year

Lincoln: When Luxury Ruled the Road

Remembering the Gulf Oil Corporation

The New Pontiac Transportation Museum Displays Great History

Remembering the Popular 1970 Chrysler Hurst Edition

The 1955 Ford Thunderbird Turns 70 Years Old

Remembering the Ford GT40 MKIII Road Car