Automania and more.

Detroit is a city going through enormous change. It's here where the motor car first became mass produced at a cost that ordinary folk could afford and in numbers that would change the world.

But the last twenty years or so haven't been kind to Detroit. The industry it spawned has moved elsewhere, and the jobs with it. What was once a thriving community is now in retrenchment. The population has decreased from two million in the fifties to around seven hundred thousand, and whole areas have been decimated.

(If you want to see the Detroitus go to http://www.100abandonedhouses.com/)

But we didn't want to see any of that! We made our way straight to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, home of the mass produced motorcar.

A sign said that cameras were banned - even from parking lots.

We were cheerfully given permission to stay overnight in the car park; we wanted to be through those doors as they opened in the morning.

A small entrance for what lies behind.

This wondrous museum was started by Henry Ford himself, and has been added to over the years since his death in 1947. It contains what seems to be an eclectic mix of objects, from Spinning Jennies to steam tractors. And of course a delightful selection of cars ranging across the years.

That's a Rembrandt Bugatti sculpture of an elephant on the radiator cap. Why I don't know.

Diane's favourite was the Bugatti Royale. There's only six on this planet, and I was told this was worth around $20,000,000. Diane obviously has expensive tastes. But there are only six because they didn't really sell. In fact the French government bought several hundred of the Bugatti engines and used them to pull passenger trains. I think the car looks prettier.

The black one or the white one?

I couldn't make my mind up between the Cord and the Duesenberg - but I imagine both together would cost rather less than the Bugatti.

A Cadillac Eldorado at the height of 1959 tail finnery.

It's when one see these cars in the flesh and hear of their prices that it becomes apparent that they are in the league of works of art - beautifully crafted and irreplaceable.

Space was the final frontier.

But these are also icons of style and fashion. It's interesting to see how far the designers could push the limits of what would be tolerated. Some may look ridiculous in their excesses nowadays, but there's no denying the care and detail that went into the creation of these sculptures. When does something stop looking naff and start to look classic? it's a process that still baffles me.

Now I really think they went too far with the Edsel. So did the public - this car was a flop.

But we like their free Wi-fi.

A fifties dining experience today.









And then there's the history created with cars. Here is the car that carried President Kennedy when he was assassinated - by exactly who we'll never know. I've seen this very car glide by in the grainy, shaky footage from Mr Zapruder's camera so many times I felt a sense of deja vu when I walked up to it - it was like seeing an old friend.

Things may have been very different if the top had been there on 22nd Nov. 1963.

This car rushed Kennedy, Jackie his wife and Governor Connelly to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, with blood on its seats and the Presidents brain over its trunk. If only it could bear witness to that day.

The driver's cab is where the steps are on the left.

And then on to one of the most powerful steam engines ever, built to haul loads of coal one and a quarter miles long from the vast coal mines in West Virginia across the Allegheny mountains . It's over 125 feet (38 meters) long.

What the driver saw on one of the biggest steam trains on Earth.

Two of these monsters were used to haul the coal over the mountain range, then one was uncoupled and returned with empty wagons. The Earth itself must have feared the weight of these monster loads.

But technology ever moves on, and diesel locomotives signalled the death of these beautiful creations after only fifteen years of work. (This one still managed to travel not far short of half a million miles in that time though.)

The Americans are very good at relocating things.

There's a timeline in the exhibits to follow as well. (Which I haven't done in this blog.) A 1760 Newcomen steam engine is here, rescued from a mine in Cornwall and resurrected in Detroit.

The very early days of electricity production.

Huge turn-of-the-century generators, built at a time when steam was still the driving force of industry, and it wasn't clear whether AC or DC current was where the future lay.

Tucked away in a corner.

And then an amazing find - Nikola Teslar's death mask. The adjoining information about the rivalry between Tesla, Edison and Westinghouse was rather biased, and thin on credit to Tesla, but as one chap behind me said, "The winners get to write history."

Tesla when he was well.

Now Nikola Tesla had an astonishing mind, and in my opinion intellectually far outweighed Edison or Westinghouse - and I'm glad to say most people who I met at this little corner of the museum agreed with me. He had a way of visualising his ideas that is very rare, much in the same way that Warther, our ivory carver, could see 511 wooden pliers in a shaped piece of wood.

Even if you're not interested in science, a little research on Tesla will give you plenty of food for thought.

The other magic bus.

 One of the more thought provoking exhibits was the bus that Rosa Parks was riding in when she refused to move to the back seats. This was in 1955. There were two sets of doors, one at the front for whites and one at the back for 'coloureds'. She was asked to move back to make room for a white guy, and she refused. The law at that time couldn't let that happen, so she was arrested.

Rosa Parks looking cheesed off.

The look of wearied resignation on her face as she was fingerprinted and photographed says a lot. She'd had enough.

There's more information here: http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/rosaparks/story.asp

Coloreds in the back only.

The movement for black equality started from the actions of this brave young woman, and became an unstoppable force.

But what gave me most food for thought...

...is that all this has happened in my lifetime. It wasn't really all that long ago.





We left with the last stragglers as the museum closed. Overall I came away with a feeling of awe at the creative achievements of mankind. The inventors most probably wouldn't have been able to produce detailed plans for the factory, the draftsman wouldn't have been able to cast the metal. The foundry worker wouldn't have been able to mill and shape the result of his labours and the machinist would have found it difficult winding the coils or laying the foundations for these huge machines.

But by working together with each others skills, truly wondrous things have been crafted.

They still craft wondrous sandwiches.