It was Sept. 27, 1908 that Henry Ford changed the world, when the first Model T rolled out of the factory.
Production started modestly at Ford’s Piquette Avenue Plant, with only 11 vehicles reportedly produced in the first month. Demand quickly outstripped the capacity of the comparatively small factory and by 1910, Ford had built and moved production to the mammoth Highland Park factory 3 miles north. The moving assembly line would come on line about three years later, introducing the world to mass production and solidifying Detroit as the epicenter of automotive manufacturing.
Only the first 12,000 of the more than 15 million Model Ts assembled between 1908 and 1927 were produced at the Piquette Plant, along with seven other Ford automobiles that preceded it (the building was constructed in 1904). After moving production to Highland Park, Ford sold the Piquette Plant to Studebaker, which was expanding its own factory that was literally next door. At the time, Ford and Studebaker were the two largest-volume car makers in the world.
Built in 1904, the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant produced Ford’s Model B, C, F, K, N, R and S models before the Model T was launched in late 1908.Photo: Barry Kluczyk
In 2000, after decades of changed hands, the site was sold to the Model-T Automotive Heritage Complex, which has operated it as the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant museum — and at the end of each September, they open the doors and celebrate the world-changing icon with a birthday party. We stopped by this year to have a piece of cake, check out the vehicle displays and take a ride around the historic neighborhood in a Model T.
There are signs all around the Piquette Plant of the manufacturing decline in Detroit, but also signs of renewal. Along with the rehabbed Piquette Plant museum, which was named a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 2006, the former Studebaker facility joined at its hip is being restored as an apartment complex, while another of the former Studebaker buildings down the street is now a Veterans Administration facility.
Ford’s tenancy of the Piquette Plant was relatively brief, but its significance as the birthplace of the car and industry that changed the world endures 115 years later. The museum celebrates it every day, but brings out the cake and balloons once a year — and it’s a party worth attending.