Day 131 - Henry Ford & Downtown Detroit, MI

I visited Dearborn 9 years ago with work and it has changed a lot since then. It was quite run down with a lot of derelict buildings in the downtown area but today it seems to have been revitalized with new bars, restaurants, hotels, apartments and shops. The only exception to this was the hotel I stayed in back then which is located opposite Fairlane Town Center mall. This hotel used to be a huge bustling Hyatt, the car park was always packed and there always seemed to be one conference or another going on. Today it has changed hands to an Edward Hotel & Conference Center and it looks empty. The mall opposite hasn't changed much, some of my old hangouts are still there although it does little a dated and run down now, a similar feel to many malls we see around the country.

Edward Hotel & Conference Center

Today our plan was to see the Henry Ford Museum and to do the Ford Factory Tour. We bought our combination ticket online which turned out to be a lot cheaper than buying the ticket on the door, and headed over to the Henry Ford Complex.

The factory tour was awesome but we were very limited as to what we could take photos of. There were two films to start, one about the history of Ford which was interesting and showed some of the darker history with the unions and recession rather than just shining a light on the good stuff. The second film was an award winning film and one of the best we’d seen. It showed the process for making a Ford F-150 truck. There were screens all around us and a life sized model car in front with lasers making it appear like it was being built, there were even two robots either side mimicking the assembly line process. It helped that there was a good sound track too.

We then went to the top of the factory for a view out at this huge plant. The original concept was a factory where raw materials come in and everything is built from scratch so the site had everything on it - metal works, fabric factory, power plant, paint shop, etc. I think they have out sourced and sold off some parts of the process now but the majority of the buildings remain.

We then headed to the factory floor where we saw the production line for the F-150 truck. It was impressive! Each employee only has about 50 seconds to place their parts onto the car and the cars are continually moving on a conveyor belt. Asides from the windscreens being fitting by robot, everything else seemed to be manually done by people. Lee asked why and was told that there are so many customisable parts and each truck is built to order so you need people to decide what to put on each car. I’m sure there is a way of computerising it but at least it’s putting people in jobs.

We were fascinated seeing all the parts come to together, some flying over your heads such as doors and front consoles before being fitted to the cars and moving onto the next station. At the end, we saw quality control being done by people and then with lasers. What surprised me most was that the F-150 is two separate pieces, the cab and the bed which are fitted together at the end. The bed attaches underneath the cab rather than to the back of it, I assume to make sure it doesn’t come off.

We could have spent all day watching the cars go around the factory, it was fascinating, but we had the Museum to see. We headed back on the complementary bus to the Henry Ford Museum.

The museum is huge and doesn’t just cover cars, it’s more a collection of things that interested Henry Ford. This includes trains, planes, steam engines and even furniture. Lee enjoyed the trains and the math area where there was a hands on display. I enjoyed seeing all the old cars and reading about how driving habits changed through the ages. The inside of the first ever Holiday Inn was cool to see too, we’ve stayed in some hotels that nearly look exactly the same, just without the shag carpet!

We had a snack in an old railway car, it was basic but it was more about the experience that the food. When our feet started to ache from all the walking, we decided it was time to go.

After a little rest in the hotel we decided to grab an Uber to downtown Detroit. We have been debating whether to go to downtown Detroit since we started planning the route for the trip 2 years ago. We had originally decided to give it a miss given how dangerous we’d heard it was but after several locals told us that it’s different now, we decided to give it a go. We are so glad we did. We had a list of recommended bars from the hotel and they were all excellent, we didn’t feel unsafe walking between the bars and the whole of downtown had a cosmopolitan and touristy vibe. There were loads of police and security personal around, something we had been told in one bar had helped the rejuvenation. We didn’t see many derelict buildings driving into downtown or whilst in downtown, those that had been derelict before had been converted into funky bars, office buildings or new apartments. Hopefully Detroit has turned a corner and it will soon rival some of the other big cities for tourists.

At the recommendation of one of the bar tenders, we headed to Sweetwater Tavern for dinner. We shared the ribs and chicken wings combo which was huge and really tasty. We had so much food, we ended up taking half of it home with us to eat over the next couple of days.

Before leaving, we walked up Greek Street where people were posing in their mustangs, hot rods, and Harleys, a little similar to South Beach although we did see a group of rebels cycling instead, showing how cool push bikes can be too.

It wasn’t until midnight that we realised how late it had got so we jumped back into a Uber to Dearborn for a well earned rest after a very busy day.