Piquette Avenue: Where the Model T Was Born

The brick building on Piquette Avenue is the oldest purpose-built automobile factory building open to the public, and arguably the most consequential factory floor in American history. Completed in nineteen oh four as the first plant built by the Ford Motor Company, it is where Henry Ford, engineer Harold Wills, and designer Joseph Galamb worked out the Model T. The first production Model T was completed in this building on September twenty-seventh, nineteen oh eight.

Within two years Ford outgrew the plant and moved production to Highland Park, where the moving assembly line would follow. The building sat neglected for decades before the Model T Automotive Heritage Complex purchased it in two thousand and restored it as a museum. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in two thousand six.