{"id":4028,"date":"2014-04-22T07:44:46","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T21:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=4028"},"modified":"2020-06-20T01:24:22","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:24:22","slug":"the-ford-river-rouge-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/makes-models\/the-ford-river-rouge-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ford River Rouge Complex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ford <\/a>in Australia is, unfortunately, dying.\u00a0 It has received a mortal wound and is going through the process of twitching and groaning before ultimately giving up the ghost, more\u2019s the pity.\u00a0 However, the same can\u2019t be said of Ford in other parts of the world.\u00a0 So to cheer all my fellow Ford fans up, here\u2019s a bit of info about one of the oldest and possibly largest Ford factories: the Ford River Rouge Complex in Detroit, founded in 1917, which started manufacturing Model Ts since the late 1920s and still at work churning out Fords today.<\/p>\n

The Ford River Rouge Complex, often just known as \u201cThe Rouge\u201d, has been called one of the wonders of the industrial world and \u201ca city without residents\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s got its own transport system \u2013 right from the beginning, it had 100 miles of railroad track and its own internal bus system as well as its own electricity generators.\u00a0 It was a completely self-sufficient factory: raw materials came in at one end and finished cars came out of the other.\u00a0 Even the plastic parts originally came from soybean derived oils grown in Ford-owned fields and the rubber came from a Ford-owned plantation in Brazil.\u00a0 Today, it\u2019s not quite as self-sufficient or as big, but it\u2019s still pretty impressive. It covers 600 acres and employs over 6000 people.<\/p>\n

Originally, the factory buildings were designed to be reasonably pleasant to work in, with lots of glass all over the show so that it felt light and spacious for the workers inside.\u00a0 Today, it\u2019s still doing the architectural design for living thing, with the largest \u201cliving roof\u201d in the world to tackle stormwater, and has lots of green space all around the place as well as other eco-friendly features to minimise pollution.<\/p>\n

\"river<\/a><\/p>\n

However, all has not been rosy for the Rouge over the years and this massive complex did nearly close its doors in the early 1990s when they decided to stop making the Mustang there.\u00a0 Sure, they were still churning out Dearborn trucks from The Rouge (and still do), but there were howls of protest.\u00a0 People wanted to save the Mustang and keep the Rouge in production.\u00a0 Happily, both the Mustang and the Rouge stayed \u2013 although the Mustangs are being made elsewhere.\u00a0 The Rouge is still being redeveloped, with the Henry Ford Museum being closely linked with the Rouge and sharing the site, as well as running tours through the plant.\u00a0 (Hmmm\u2026\u00a0 Ford Australia, take note.)\u00a0 They\u2019re still in the redevelopment process, so it will be interesting to see what happens.<\/p>\n

One of the few actual Ford vehicles made at this heritage factory is the Ford F150. We don\u2019t get this over here, as the Powers That Be at Ford have said that the Aussie-made Ford Ranger <\/a>does the job for this part of the world and they won\u2019t be making the F150 with right-hand-drive.\u00a0 The F150 is, however, one of the best-selling vehicles in the USA (and has been for over 30 years) and is a tough, stylish ute (or \u201cpickup truck\u201d, as our American friends call it). \u00a0With any luck \u2013 and I\u2019m guessing here \u2013 this will change, given that (a) Ford Australia is shutting its doors, (b) Ford USA is coming out with a new F150 soon and (c) we like our utes over here.\u00a0 Fingers crossed, everybody.<\/p>\n

\"ford<\/a><\/p>\n

  http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/offers-zaim\/oneclickmoney-zaim-na-kartu.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ford in Australia is, unfortunately, dying.\u00a0 It has received a mortal wound and is going through the process of twitching and groaning before ultimately giving up the ghost, more\u2019s the pity.\u00a0 However, the same can\u2019t be said of Ford in other parts of the world.\u00a0 So to cheer all my fellow Ford fans up, here\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-makes-models"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4028"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11961,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4028\/revisions\/11961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}