The Henry Ford Museum.
The Entrance
Ford and Edison Worked together on many projects
Just inside the museum are the cars used by a number of presidents during their terms in office.
Reagan's Car
Kennedy's Car
Eisenhower's Car
FDR's Car
Teddy Roosevelt's Car
Horse Drawn
The 1959 VW Westfalia. The first motorized camper. Everything you thought you'd ever need for camping without putting up a tent. Some things were options though. Evolved into the Vanagon in 1979 and and was built up to 1992.
I copied the equipment list from WikiPedia
Standard equipment[edit]
- Various foldout seat arrangements for sleeping
- Birch plywood interior panels
- Laminated plywood cabinetry for storage
- Ice box or cold-box
- Sink (some models)
- Water storage and pump
- Electrical hookups
- Curtains
- Screened jalousie (Venetian blind) windows
- Laminated folding table
Optional equipment[edit]
- Attached "pop up" tops with canvas/screen sides
- Awnings and side tents
- A portable chemical toilet
- A camping stove
- Various camping equipment
- Child sleeping cot in driver cab
- Storage box which matches interior. Can be placed between front seats by sliding door.
- Rear swing table
- Small map table mounted on dash
- Automatic Transmission (beginning in the 1970s)
- Air conditioning (dealer installed) (from 1954)
The Airstream
How's this for one of the first "pop ups"
AHH, the 1956 T-Bird with the removable top.
Never saw this concept car on the road. The 1962 Mustang Roadster
Saw plenty of these in the sixties and on. The 1965 Mustang convertible.
People want to go "off roading" even in the 1920s. Check out these tires.
The 1965 Goldenrod held the land speed record until 1991
Some other classics The 1963 Riviera
The 1958 Edsel.
Remember Charles Kuralt "On the Road" Here's his office on wheels.
Nash Rambler
Some random photos in the museum
The safest car to Never hit the road. Maybe because it cost $150,000 at the time.
No just cars, but airplanes too.
Big machines too
Tools and Hardware store displays
More big machines
Women's Rights and the Civil Rights movements
The exploded car shows how it's built.
This was unique. The Dymaxion House, designed by Buckminster Fuller in the 1920s, not built until 1945. A geodesic dome home with innovations far ahead of it's time. It could be mass produced in aircraft factories. The post-war reduction in the aircraft manufacturing would leave plants already built to handle the construction of these all metal homes.
They coined a new word for the shelves that revolved up and down, they called them "ovolving".
An ovolving shelf
Needless to say, this never got off the ground, because the funding never came through. This prototype is the only remaining one in the country and was acquired by the Ford museum in 1991 and rebuilt there. It was built in Kansas in 1948 by William Graham and was known as the Wichita House. I grabbed this photo from the internet.
Now here's the first portable outdoor BBQ. Looks like you needed electric to use it.
The Henry Ford museum had a lot of other stuff that didn't interest me, but this gives you a taste of it.
Wow Carolyn This is super great. Thank you for taking the time to post this. I feel as if I was there with you. Well done
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