Virtual Tour: Treasures of The Henry Ford museum

Located next to Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation isn’t exactly what it sounds like.

It’s not a history of Ford and its various divisions as car-makers. It’s a comprehensive display of the automobile’s life story in America as told through Ford’s lens. It’s honest and equitable; to its credit, the company isn’t afraid to display some of its failures or highlight its competitors’ successes.

Right now, it's closed along with so much else in the world. So instead, join us as we take a virtual stroll through one of the greatest automotive museums in the US, and then look forward to seeing it in person when we can:

Roper steam carriage (1865)

Ford calls the Roper steam carriage the oldest surviving American car. Inspired by locomotives, inventor Sylvester Roper designed a two-cylinder steam engine small enough to power a horse-less carriage. “It can be driven, with two persons on it, 150 miles a day,” reads a period brochure displayed in the museum. Roper bragged he would “match it against any trotting horse in the world.” Never mass produced, the steam carriage was such a great oddity that people paid to watch it drive around a track.

Ford 999 (1902)

Henry Ford teamed up with two engineers to build the 999, a purpose-designed race car powered by an 18.9-litre four-cylinder engine rated at 80bhp. Ford and his partners were afraid to drive the 999 lest the beast tame them, not vice versa, so they hired intrepid bicycle racer Barney Oldfield (1878-1946) to slip behind the wheel. He won a five-mile race held in Grosse Point, Michigan, in 1902 and later became one of America’s most famous race car drivers.

Holsman Runabout (1903)

The modern-day SUV traces its roots back to models like the Holsman Runabout. Passenger cars built in the early 20th century were often ill-suited to driving in America’s rural parts because they were heavier and lower than horse-drawn carriages and, consequently, they easily got stuck on muddy or rocky roads. Chicago-based Holsman Automobile Company designed the Runabout specifically for the countryside.

Part of the high-wheeler segment, the Runabout benefited from large wheels, puncture-proof tires made of solid rubber and a 5hp air-cooled engine that required no radiator and no water. The Holsman company operated until 1910; its founder Henry Holsman died in 1963, aged 97: his long life gave him a grandstand view of the birth and development of industrial America.

Scripps-Booth Rocket (1913)

America’s cyclecar segment boomed in the early 1910s. These small, light and affordable machines relied on mechanical components designed for motorcycles. The Scripps-Booth Rocket received an air-cooled V2 engine that sent 10bhp to the rear wheels through a chain. It could seat two and, oddly, the driver sat directly behind the passenger.

In 1914, buyers could choose from 80 different cyclecar models. Ford’s Model T almost singlehandedly eradicated the class. It was bigger and more powerful than the average cyclecar and it performed better on unpaved roads, which were common outside of major cities at the time. It was also cheaper than most cyclecar models, including the Scripps-Booth Rocket.

Detroit-Electric Model 47 (1914)

Henry Ford’s wife Clara did not, as you’d expect, drive a Model T. She used this Detroit-Electric Model 47 as her personal car into the 1930s. 100 years ago, electric cars were considered female-friendly because they were much easier to start and drive than comparable petrol-powered models, which had to be crank-started (with difficulty in the case of the Model T) and whose transmissions at times required superhuman efforts to shift.

Cadillac installed the first electric starter into a petrol car in 1912; the Model T didn’t get one as an option until 1919.

Brewster Town Landaulet (1915)

Brewster specialized in making horse-drawn carriages for wealthy Americans. The car’s ever-increasing popularity put its business in great peril so, in 1915, it decided to join the sector and built its own.

A genuine bridge from one era to the next, Brewster’s first car was a cross between a carriage and a car. It offered the chauffeur then-modern features such as electric lights and a 55bhp four-cylinder engine with an electric starter. The firm modeled its car’s interior after that of a carriage to please buyers seeking old-school luxury and comfort. Brewster prospered for a while in the 1920s with luxury cars, but it was then badly hit by the Great Depression and went out of business in 1935.

Chevrolet Royal Mail (1915)

Think of the Chevrolet Royal Mail as the modern-day Camaro’s distant relative. In a bid to build a more exciting car, Chevrolet gave the Royal Mail the typical long hood, short deck proportions of a race car and mounted the fuel tank right behind the passenger compartment. The 2.8-litre straight-six engine provided 24bhp, making the Royal Mail one of the sportier cars of its era.

Woods Dual-Power (1916)

Founded in 1899, Chicago-based Woods Motor Vehicle Company made electric cars. Its business took a turn for the worse when petrol began overshadowing electricity as a means of propulsion for cars. It introduced the Dual-Power, a petrol-electric hybrid, as a last-ditch effort to stay afloat.

The Dual-Power’s 14 hp four-cylinder engine spun the rear wheels with help from a DC electric motor linked to a 48-volt lead-acid battery pack with 24 cells. Unfortunately for Woods, the final product was heavy, slow and overly expensive. The firm shut down after building the last Dual-Power in 1918.

Chrysler B-70 (1924)

You wouldn’t guess this by looking at the Chrysler line-up today, but the brand’s very first models were among the sportiest cars in America. They were relatively light and packed with state-of-the-art features like hydraulic brakes, an oil pump, and an air filter. The B-70’s six-cylinder engine made 68bhp.

Essex Coach (1924)

The Essex Motor Company introduced the Coach in 1922. It offered motorists “closed car comfort at an open car cost,” according to a period ad. It was immensely popular and its price got lower as production volumes swelled over the subsequent years. The 1924 example pictured here retailed for $975 (about $14,000 today). It was roughly $300 more expensive than a four-door Ford Model T but it was appreciably less rudimentary.

Open-top cars cost considerably less than fixed-roof models in the 1910s and the 1920s. The evident trade-off is that they were impractical at best because they exposed the passengers to rain, wind, dust from dirt roads, exhaust fumes and noise. Some of the cleverer entrepreneurs founded companies that sold hard top kits which could be installed with relatively basic tools in a few hours.

Ford Flivver (1926)

Henry Ford dabbled in plane-making for years, though he resignedly quit upon realizing building cars was considerably more profitable. Envisioned as “the Model T of the sky,” the Flivver was a single-seater aircraft whose dimensions were locked in when Ford told engineer Otto Koppen (1901-1991) he wanted a plane that could fit in his office. Ford ended the project when a prototype crashed off of the Florida coast, killing chief test pilot Harry Brooks.

Blue Bird school bus (1927)

Ford dealer Albert Luce (1888-1962) built the first Blue Bird school bus by dropping a forest cabin-like body on the unsuspecting chassis of a Model T. He made it more durable than other school buses roaming the US in the 1920s by adopting a body with frame made of steel instead of wood. Demand grew and Blue Bird became the largest school bus manufacturer in the US.

Luce’s employees found the original Blue Bird, which miraculously survived, restored it and gave it to him as a Christmas present in 1947. Ford notes it’s the oldest surviving school bus in America.

Lincoln Zephyr (1936)

Lincoln introduced the Zephyr as it experimented with more stream-lined designs. Inspired by the 1934 Chrysler Airflow, it wore a V-shaped grille, swept-back headlights integrated into the fenders, an aerodynamic roof line and covered rear wheels. The stream-lined look proved hugely popular among car buyers and, broadly speaking, helped take car design to the next level in America and abroad. It was a brainchild of Edsel Ford (1893-1943), Henry’s only child.

Lincoln Bubbletop (1950)

Ford’s Lincoln division, Cadillac’s arch enemy, provided the White House with limousines and parade cars in its heyday. The firm delivered this one-of-a-kind, custom-built convertible in 1950. It came with a folding bug shield to protect the president’s face when he was standing up.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked for the Plexiglas top that gave the car its name so he could see (and be seen) even in inclement weather. Lincoln delivered a new limousine in 1961 but the Bubbletop car remained at the White House as a spare car until 1967.

Crosley Hotshot (1951)

Powel Crosley (1886-1961) tried getting Americans hooked on small cars. His company marketed the Hotshot as a roadster that doubled as a race car. Owners could use it daily during the week and go racing on the weekend by removing the windshield, the bumpers, the top and the headlights.

The Hotshot arrived in 1946 with an engine made from brazed sheet metal. The so-called “Tin Wonder” proved less reliable than Crosley anticipated, partly because it ended up in the hands of owners who considered basic maintenance intervals ballpark suggestions. Post-1949 Hotshots (like the one pictured) switched to a more conventional cast-iron engine.

It cost $924 (about $10,000 today) but it didn’t attract enough buyers to keep the company in business. Crosley shut down in 1952, about two decades before Americans truly started taking small cars seriously.

Chrysler 300-B (1956)

Industrialist Carl Kiekhaefer (1906-1983) charted the future of NASCAR when he began racing a Chrysler 300 in 1955. His choice of car wasn’t revolutionary; it’s how he ran his team that raised the eyebrows of fans and competitors alike.

Fabulously wealthy from his Mercury marine engines business, Kiekhaefer insisted his drivers and mechanics wear matching uniforms, cars and transporters receive matching paint schemes and he turned pit stops into a choreographed race against time. Behind the scenes, he tuned his cars’ engines on a dynamometer to extract as much power as possible. This all sounds perfectly normal today but it was a novel approach to racing in the mid-1950s.

The 1956 300-B displayed in the Henry Ford museum achieved the holy grail of engine tuning: one horsepower per cubic inch. Its 352ci (5.7-litre) V8 made 355 horsepower. Americans affectionately called it the banker’s hot rod.

Cornell-Liberty Safety Car (1957)

In America, car accidents killed nearly 35,000 people annually in the late 1940s. Insurance company Liberty Mutual and a research laboratory at Cornell University spent five years brainstorming ways to slash that figure by making safer cars. They presented the fruit of their labor, a prototype named Safety Car, in 1957. They described their effort as “packaging the passenger.”

Cornell-Liberty Safety Car (1957)

From a design standpoint, the Safety Car looked like a personified saloon from a Cartoon Network show. It was much more serious than that, though. It came with seat belts, a panoramic windscreen with four wipers, handles in lieu of a steering wheel (which often impaled the driver during a crash), a mid-mounted driver’s seat, headrests and energy-absorbing bumpers on both ends. Accordion doors on both sides prevented the passengers from getting ejected.

Cornell-Liberty Safety Car (1957)

Many of the features exhibited by the Cornell Liberty car later seeped down into production models. The prototype also had a formative influence on research about car safety in America, paving the way for projects like the Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) program announced by the Department of Transportation in 1973. The car itself never made it to production, though.

Ford Mustang I concept (1962)

By Ford’s own admission, decision-makers commissioned the Mustang I concept to change the public’s image of the brand. They wanted consumers to think of Ford as an exciting, forward-looking company. The campaign shifted into high gear when Dan Gurney demonstrated the mid-engined Mustang I on the sidelines of the 1962 edition of the United States Grand Prix.

Satisfied with the press coverage, Ford tucked the Mustang I concept in a warehouse without seriously considering building it. The name returned on a second concept car in 1963 and on the now-celebrated production model the following year.

Buick Riviera (1963)

With the original Riviera, Buick wanted to prove it could design a car as well as the Italians or the British, the industry’s design heroes. Bill Mitchell (1912-1988), General Motors’ styling chief, examined Rolls-Royce and Ferrari models for inspiration to create a car that looked contemporary without being overly ostentatious. The shapely sheet metal hid time-tested mechanical components shared with other members of the Buick line-up.

If it looks grand for a Buick, that’s because it was originally destined to be a Cadillac but that GM division didn’t want it.

Chrysler turbine car (1963)

Rover, General Motors and even Volkswagen experimented with turbine-powered cars. Chrysler took the concept a step further. It built 50 prototypes and placed them in the hands of hand-selected customers to gather valuable feedback about how the technology performed in real-world conditions.

The company’s archives department notes users appreciated the low maintenance and the vibration-free powertrain but they complained about the lackadaisical acceleration and the poor fuel economy.

Chrysler turbine car (1963)

The untrained eye couldn’t tell the difference between Chrysler’s turbine-powered car and one of its petrol-burning models. For all anyone knew, the gorgeous, Ghia-built body surrounded a mighty V8 engine. Careful observers noted the telling presence of fin-shaped styling cues in the headlight bezels, on the hubcaps, next to the rear lights and on the center console.

Chrysler, like its rivals, ultimately abandoned plans to mass-produced a turbine-powered car, though the technology did end up powering the M1 Abrams, America’s main battle tank that entered service in 1980.

Ford Mustang (1965)

Ford’s Mustang is one of the rare cars that could exist as a standalone brand – and indeed, with the new electric Mustang Mach-E – perhaps it’s heading that way. Designed to counter the Chevrolet Corvair, which was in turn aimed at the Volkswagen Beetle, the Mustang made its debut at the 1964 World Fair in New York City. It exceeded everyone’s wildest expectations; Ford sold 22,000 examples in the 24 hours after the model’s introduction.

Toyota Corona (1966)

Toyota sold its first car in America, the Toyopet Crown, in 1958. Slow, small and distributed through an inadequate dealer network, it failed to lure motorists out of full-size American sedans. The Corona – a name that now sadly  comes with dread connotations - introduced in 1965 was considerably more successful. It paved the way for Toyota’s prosperity in what was then the world’s largest new car market and helped the firm earn a reputation for selling reliable cars at a budget-friendly price.

Ford Mark IV (1967)

The story is now well known: Henry Ford II (1917-1987) tried buying Ferrari in 1963. He almost had a deal but the famously temperamental Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) backed out at the last minute. Determined to get even, Ford enlisted Carroll Shelby (1923-2012) to help design a race car capable of ending Ferrari’s winning streak at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Plagued with teething problems, none of the GT40s finished the race in 1964 or 1965. Ford went back to the drawing board and captured the first three spots on the podium the following year, much to Ferrari’s bewilderment. Improvements helped it win in 1967, 1968 and 1969, too. The company points out it applied aerospace building techniques to save weight and tweaked the car’s design in a wind tunnel.

Mercury Cougar (1968)

Ford’s Mercury division jumped into the pony car segment in 1966 with the Cougar. The brand followed the time-tested recipe of stuffing a big, powerful engine in a relatively small car. The Cougar’s main rivals included the Chevrolet Camaro, the Pontiac Firebird, the Plymouth Barracuda and the Ford Mustang it shared its basic platform with.

Mercury highlighted the Cougar’s more upscale positioning by offering a line-up of V8-only models. Buyers who wanted a thrifty six-cylinder engine needed to walk into a competitor’s showroom.

Mercury Cougar (1968)

The 1968 Cougar displayed in Ford’s collection shows the optional XR7-G package. Named after Dan Gurney, who raced the Cougar in the Trans-Am series, the package adds an array of visual add-ons like a bullet-shaped side mirror, fog lights and chromed hood pins.

Lincoln presidential limousine (1972)

John F. Kennedy’s assassination convinced White House officials to order safer presidential cars. Marking a stark contrast with previous limousines, the closed-roof model delivered in 1972 came with full body armor, bullet-proof glass all around, run-flat tires and a pair of two-way communication systems. Members of the Secret Service team could stand on a fold-down rear bumper and hold on to a handle-like safety bar integrated into the boot lid.

Lincoln presidential limousine (1972)

The 1972 limousine weighed 5909kg, twice as much as the Bubbletop delivered 22 years earlier. That was a lot of metal to move around, even for a 7.5-litre V8 that did its best to churn out 210bhp. It remained in the White House’s fleet until 1992.

Chrysler Newport (1973)

The Chrysler Newport illustrates the mammoth proportions American cars reached before the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo forced auto-makers to downsize. It stretched 5842mm from bumper to bumper. In comparison, a 2020 Chevrolet Suburban measures 5690mm long. At the time, motorists joked their big, V8-powered sedans could pass anything on the road except a petrol station.

Dodge Omni (1978)

Chrysler turned to its European division for help in building smaller, more efficient cars that didn’t feel cheap. The Dodge Omni and its twin, the Plymouth Horizon, were available with big-car features like air conditioning, two-tone paint and a three-speed automatic transmission. Their future looked bright, and Motor Trend even gave the Omni/Horizon duo its coveted Car of the Year award in 1978.

Issues with build quality and reliability prevented the Omni/Horizon from posing a major threat to Japanese imports like the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla, however.

Comuta-Car (1980)

Today, it’s impossible to attend an auto show without hearing the words “electric” and “mobility” – usually in the same sentence. The concept is far from new.

In the 1970s, Florida-based Commuter Vehicles developed a 5bhp electric car with a 40-mile range that could pass as the offspring of a Smart Fortwo and a clothes iron from the 1970s. The timing was right: spooked by rising fuel prices, about 4000 people purchased either a Comuta-Car or its predecessor, the CitiCar. Power companies experimented with them, too. When the craze died down, the Comuta-Car joined similar machines in the pantheon of automotive history.

Ford Escort (1981)

The Escort represented Ford’s response to an influx of small, fuel efficient economy cars from Japan and, to a lesser extent, Europe. Advertisements touted its fuel-efficient four-cylinder engine, which helped the Escort return better gas mileage than the Volkswagen Golf (Rabbit), its aerodynamic design and its front-wheel drive layout. Ford also highlighted the Escort’s “world car” status.

Plymouth Voyager (1984)

As America’s first modern MPV, the Plymouth Voyager existed at the intersection of cars and vans. It drove like a car yet it offered enough space for a family and a road trip’s worth of gear. The Voyager took the industry by surprise. Minivans soon replaced the station wagon in suburban driveways from coast to coast and, believe it or not, they were actually considered cool and fresh in the 1980s.

The tables have turned. Today, nothing says “I’ve arrived; so have my three kids plus the Alsatian” quite like a minivan. Motorists with a family to haul now shop for an SUV, and with gas prices now so low, this won’t change anytime soon.

Ford Taurus (1986)

The original Taurus emerged from a major shift in Ford’s design philosophy. Market research showed American buyers flocked to Japanese cars because they drove well, they returned good fuel economy and they were less conservative-looking than their American rivals. The lesson learned, Ford remembers, was to design a car like a Japanese company would. The Taurus consequently broke all ties with earlier Ford sedans; even the nameplate was brand-new.

General Motors EV1 (1997)

General Motors made a serious attempt at building an electric car when it introduced the EV1 in 1996. Many of its styling cues fell in line with Saturn’s design language but the EV1 wore GM emblems. The auto-maker, likely concerned with image issues, refused to attribute the coupe to one of its brands.

GM offered the EV1 through a lease program to motorists in a small handful of American cities, including Los Angeles. It was a “real-world engineering evaluation,” the company explained, and it warned participants they could be asked to return the car at any moment. GM recalled all 1117 examples before the end of 2003 and crushed most of them. Officials argued demand for an electric car was too low to justify further investment, a decision that GM CEO Rick Wagoner would later regret. The EV1 was in truth too little, too early.

Toyota Prius (1997)

Toyota announced its intention to build a hybrid car by displaying a concept named Prius at the 1995 Tokyo Auto Show. Few rivals took notice; if they had, they would have been ready for what followed.

The original Prius became the world’s first mass-produced car with a petrol-electric hybrid powertrain, though Honda beat Toyota to the American market with the two-door Insight. Early models wore a “hybrid” emblem on the bottom left side of the boot lid. That’s no longer necessary today. The overall shape does all the talking, and the car is a major groundbreaker.

Ford Focus Electric (2009)

In 2009, Ford electrified a European-spec Focus for rich and famous Hollywoodians to drive in Jay Leno’s Green Car Challenge. It was a marketing stunt aimed at generating interest in emissions-free driving by placing movie, sports and music stars behind the wheel of an electric car on national television.

Built in only six weeks, the Focus ST-based prototype received a long list of modifications including a 141bhp electric motor, a 23kWh lithium-ion battery pack and a comprehensively updated suspension put together using bits and pieces from the parts shelf labeled “Focus RS.” The Focus Electric delivered about 80 miles of range, according to Ford, and the battery pack gave it a 50/50 weight distribution.

Ford GT (2015)

Ford returned to Le Mans in 2016 after a decades-long absence with the same mission in mind: finish ahead of Ferrari. The GT didn’t win the race, it no longer competes in the top category, but it beat the Ferrari 488 GTE to take first place among the GTE Pro cars.

If you enjoyed this story, sign up to Autocar’s newsletter for all the best car news, reviews and opinion direct to your inbox. Click here to subscribe.