Vintage Photo: Quitting Time At The Rouge, 1947 – Now To Find My Car
– Posted on October 10, 2021
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Finding your car should be easy.
It’s the Ford one.
Easy peasy, just press the button on your key fob and see which car blinks and beeps! 🙂
Or do what I do when I park at the airport…use your smartphone to take a photo of the sign denoting the section and row. 😂
Almost all Fords as far as I can see, I wonder when the pivot point between Old Henry’s Sociological Department and modern X-Plan discounts and preferred parking for the company’s own make was.
Ford had only been union since 1941, the last in Detroit and not long before the WW2 production changeover so most of what’s here would’ve been bought under the old system (or used).
I can make out the radiator shape of a mid/late ’30s junior Packard though,but that’s the only exception.
Considering who was putting food on their table and keeping roof over their head, you expected them to drive anything else?
Great photo! I learned about the tram from a trip in 1962 to visit the plant. Thanks.
Oddly, the handful of visible nonfords seem to be on the near end of the rows. I see a ’40 Olds, a ’38 Chrysler, and a ’41 or so Hudson. The rest are Fords or Mercs, no definite Lincolns.
I wonder if the near end was reserved for visitors!
“This sure beats the old scramble at Highland Park, huh?”
My grandfather worked at the Rouge plant, and always took the bus. Never had to worry about where the car was in the lot.
To produce the same number of cars today it takes maybe 20% the number of workers at most, I’m guessing.
Look at River Rouge on a map, and it looks like a city, but it is a Ford Plant.
Around 2008 light blue ’05ish Tauruses (Tauri?) were very common around here.
Once with the kids we walked up to ours after a Target trip or something, and I couldn’t get the key to turn the door lock (the one fob was on my wife’s keys).
Then I realized I didn’t have “Ford Racing” seat covers. (Yuk!)
Our car was 2 cars down. Oops.
My boss has a similar story about his wife getting inside an Altima, and wondering where the McDonald’s bags came from. Not her car! He said her fob had opened the car. What are the odds of that, or was he pulling my leg?
In Australia anyway, Ford used to cheap out on locks. A friend’s seventies Escort keys opened my Cortina.
My dad and I did the same thing with a ’67 Chevy Bel Air company car at a Target store. It was the Summer of ’68 or so and these cars were everywhere. The car was unlocked (they all were back then). We hopped in the car and dad couldn’t get the key to work in the ignition. Dad was an insurance adjuster back then so his car back seat was littered with Polaroid negatives. As he was fidgeting with the key I glanced over my shoulder to see an immaculate back seat. Ooops!
There was a story in the paper a few years ago about to Identical Mustangs in the church parking lot. One was reported stolen. Turns out both were keyed the same.
My Dad was UAW for over 30 years, my Uncles and cousins also. My Brother and I were members for several years while we were working our way through college. Say what you will about American auto manufacturing, the work was hard and unfulfilling, but these were jobs that allowed thousands of families to make the leap into home ownership, college for the kids, and general middle class life styles. These were the times of real opportunity for blue collar workers.
Well said. This was the golden age of the UAW and other trade unions, which brought a solid, middle class standard of living to blue collar America. Walter Reuther was revered in UAW households, fighting for benefits that enabled his members to achieve a piece of the American dream. Ford Motor Co. goons tried to intimidate him at “The Battle of the Overpass” in 1937, but it proved to be a public relationship disaster for Ford, when photos of a beaten and bloodied Reuther made front pages across the country. Three years later Henry Ford did the unthinkable, signing a contract with the UAW, the last automaker to do so.
Happened to my uncle Zoltan once at Fisher Body in N. Tarrytown. White 1960 Impala with red interior. Keyed alike.
Tell me about the tram . . .?
When young I had a 1968 Firebird 400. Green with black vinyl top. One day I went to the local drugstore, and when I came out I unlocked what I thought was my door and hopped inside..
Except, it was different. Identical interior, just different things in there.
I sat there looking around, then hopped out and took a good look at the car, yup, green 68 Firebird 400 with a black vinyl top, still puzzled I walked to the back and looked at the plate.
It was a Washington state plate, and I was in Ohio.
I looked up and down about 3 cars, was my car.
I relocked the other car and got out of there.
I found out years later that GM would use the same key blanks in geographically distant areas.
I’m sure he appreciated them bringing workers to and from his largest plants in the Detroit area, here and at Highland Park, but I wonder how Henry felt about the city-owned, “Socialist” Detroit Department of Street Railways running the show. They even had a carbarn across the street from his Highland Park office.
Lots of nice Fords in there .
In the 1960’s & 1970’s driving an import to an auto plant was asking for it to be vandalized .
Unions are the back bone of America’s Middle Class, it’s amazing how many book lickers fail to grasp this and work to undermine the unions ~ just what the 1% wants you to do : make your self slaves .
-Nate
I remember when I was young there were only 12 different keys used in Harley Davidsons. The government made them change that when they made the cars go to locking steering columns.