First Model T Plant museum and CAAP Tour pics

[chorps]

I was in Detroit area for the last couple of weeks and I went on a couple of plant tours. I got to visit one of the earliest auto factories, the original Model T plant in Piquette. http://www.tplex.org/1_overview.html

It was pretty neat, and there's a bunch of interesting facts that I never knew about the way Henry Ford did things and how influential he really was in the early days of American auto manufacturing. Most of the facts escape my dulled brain right now and I was busy taking photos so a lot of it was relayed back to me by my friends who came with me on the tour and reviewed my pics.

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There's a load of Model Ts in the museum, as you would guess, but I also found this car:

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I am cheating by putting up an image of the placard

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They also had an Olds, Studebaker, Hupmobile, a bunch of contemporary competitors, so it was an interesting place to visit.
Also a couple of prototype engines. I put the pics in but since a post is limited to 25 pics I edited them out

I might throw them into a following post if there's demand.

Of course, you can't escape a photo of the Model T.

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Wait a minute...it's red. Is there something wrong with the picture? Nope. The original production of the Model T as it left Piquette had a variety of colours to choose from. It was later, as Henry Ford moved into assemblyline production at Highland Park, that he switched Model T availability to a single colour: black. It was cheaper and faster to offer one colour...

There's also a bunch of Model T variants in the museum, including a Model T dump truck and snow mobile. Most were aftermarket mods...guess Viper production could use a hint in allowing aftermarket mods...maybe not a Viper dump truck though.

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So what's this old Ford museum got to do with the Viper? Well the Viper manufacturing facility at Conner is also a stationary assembly plant (for the most part)...so I got to tour one of the oldest auto manufacturing plants and one of the newest.

CAAP wasn't running that day but I was lucky enough to snag a tour date 2 days before they closed off all tours for a few months. It was touch and go arranging everything but Jen at Chrysler really came through (thanks Jay!) and I got to see where my Viper was born.

I'm including some photos here, I couldn't hear a lot since I was always falling behind shooting photos...

Anyhow most of these pics have been shown before and I'm sure there's a lot more people here that are familiar with what is going on in these pics.

Upon entering CAAP.

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Lots of engines.

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Robot that processes the frames

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Looking down the line. Note the frame at the top of photo.

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From the other side of the line.

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Go karts.

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Not sure what this station is for with the white car.

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Half naked Vipers.

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Almost ready to go.

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'Nuf said.

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Waiting for owners. Wasn't allowed in there...

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Carbon bits on this one going into the water test.

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Anyhow I tried to keep the pictures small enough so it'll load quickly. I hope everyone enjoyed the pics, I highly recommend the Ford Piquette plant tour and CAAP of course!

I'll leave off with this photo from the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn.

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[GreenVenom]

Very nice!!! Thanks for sharing. I didn't know about the Model T Museum, when I get a chance to go back to CAAP I'll definitely check it out. Have been to Dearborn several times to display and demo antique bicycles in Greenfield Village and
There is a huge locomotive in the Museum that just amazes me.

 

[Nine Ball]

Excellent photos, thanks for sharing them! Do you know if the Vipers being built during that time period were pre-production cars, or production cars? I had one of the earliest white coupes on hyperblack sidewinder wheels, wonder if that was my car in this pic.

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[madninjaskillz]

Thanks for the post. I'll wager many here didn't know that the Dodge guys originally worked with/for Ford. Great pics also.

 

[chorps]

Excellent photos, thanks for sharing them! Do you know if the Vipers being built during that time period were pre-production cars, or production cars? I had one of the earliest white coupes on hyperblack sidewinder wheels, wonder if that was my car in this pic.

This tour was just last week so they are all 2014s from what I was told...all production cars I'm guessing.