Ford revs up tours at historic Michigan complex

By The Associated Press

CARLOS OSORIO / AP Visitors look over some of Ford Motor Co.'s most famous vehicles built at its Rouge industrial site in Dearborn, Mich.

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DEARBORN, Mich. — Arches of light flew through the air, fog filled the room and the floor shook when truck bodies were pressed.

The theme park-like effects are part of the experience for visitors at the Ford Motor Co.'s Rouge plant, which reopened its doors to the public earlier this month.

The tours begin and end at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, near Detroit, where Ford is based.

Starting in 1929, hundreds of thousands of people annually toured Ford's 600-acre complex to witness the miracle of automotive production, but tough economic times prompted the automaker to end the public showings in 1980.

Ford invested $2 billion in refurbishing the Rouge complex, once the world's largest industrial complex. The tours take 90 minutes to three hours to complete, and visitors can watch workers building Ford's best-selling vehicle, the F-150 pickup, at the new Dearborn Truck Plant, the cornerstone of the Rouge revival.

• Ford Rouge factory tour: Begins at The Henry Ford, 20900 Oakwood Blvd., Dearborn, Mich. From there, a bus, which includes audio and video presentations, takes you to the nearby Rouge complex. Tours given daily, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission: Adults, $14; seniors, $13; youths 3-12, $10; under 3, free. For more details on the Rouge tour and the Henry Ford Museum and its associated Greenfield Village (an outdoors, living-history museum), phone 313-982-6100 or see www.thehenryford.org. • For more information on automotive attractions/tours in Michigan, see MotorCities National Heritage Area, www.autoheritage.org.

The tour begins with a 12-minute film telling the story of Henry Ford and the Rouge. A second film, "The Art of Manufacturing," is a multisensory experience in a 360-degree, multiscreen theater where visitors feel such things as the heat of a blast furnace and the gentle mist of the paint shop.

Another station provides an elevator ride to an 80-foot observation deck, which offers a view of the entire complex and the living roof, billed as the world's largest, covering the new truck plant.

Visitors also take a third-of-a-mile walk through the manufacturing plant and get a glance at five of the Rouge's most famous vehicles: a 1929 Ford Model A Roadster, 1932 Ford V8 Victoria, 1949 Ford Club Coupe, 1956 Thunderbird and 1965 Mustang.

The Henry Ford, an umbrella organization that runs the Henry Ford Museum and will operate the tours, predicts 300,000 people a year will visit the Rouge.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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