There are many impressive automobile production plants the world over and I’ve visited two of the best; Goodwood, the home of Rolls-Royce, and the huge Ferrari factory in Maranello. Unsurprisingly, they differ vastly. While the former is bathed in a sea of calm and pin-drop silence much like the way a Rolls rides, the latter is far more raucous, like a Fezza. The end product emanating from both is divine. However, there’s one plant that deserves praise for its sheer size alone; the titanic Ford Rouge Centre in Dearborn, Michigan.
Built from 1917 to 1928 on the banks of the Rouge and Detroit Rivers, it measured over a mile long and was a mile wide. Consisting of 93 buildings totalling over 15-million-square-feet of floor space, it was the biggest factory in the world at the time. You’d find everything there; a tyre-making plant, engine-casting plant, frame and assembly plant, transmission plant and, to top it off, a massive power plant that could light up the whole of Detroit.
The Rouge, as it became known, even had its own railroad with 160 kilometres of track and 20 trains to help transfer raw materials both in and out of the city, not to mention its own bus network and 32 kilometres of roads to keep the 100,000-strong staff on the move. It also had its own hospital, fire department, police force and maintenance crew. Designed by Albert Kahn, its walls and ceilings featured large glass panels to help give the factory a light and airy feel.
Self-sufficiency was a key aspect of Henry Ford’s empire and during The Rouge’s peak in the Thirties, a new Ford Model T would roll off the assembly line every 60 seconds. In order to achieve this amazing feat, workers had to smelt over 2,000 tonnes of iron and produce 500 tonnes of glass at the premises. Working conditions were tough and you needed to be hard as nails to get through the eight-hour slog of a day. That there were no unions to protect the workers made it all the worse.
When the Second World War broke out, it began manufacturing parts for tanks and aircraft engines used by fighter planes. Henry’s death in the Forties signalled the end of an era as his grandson, Henry Ford II, took the mantle and brought with him many changes. He closed parts of the factory due to his concern for the environment and he helped to improve air and water quality for his workers. Over the next few decades, many operations were dropped from The Rouge due to economic necessity, but it continued churning out cars — perhaps the most famous of all being the Mustang.
In 2000, the plant was redeveloped into a state-of-the-art environmentally sustainable complex, and today employs roughly 6,000 workers. That figure may be next to nothing compared to the number of staff in its heyday, but it’s still an industrial giant, boasting 600 acres of land and one of the world’s largest living roofs at the new Dearborn Truck factory which has already become as iconic as the giant smoke stacks of the Thirties.
A rainwater reclamation system saves Ford an estimated $50 million a year on a mechanical treatment facility and also decreases energy costs by 10 per cent, while improving air quality by 40. I know how they build a Rolls and a Ferrari, but something tells me I’ve not seen anything until I visit the legendary Rouge.
