The Henry Ford Museum has put together something truly special for car lovers. And, hey! Around Detroit, that includes just about everybody.
Billed as the world’s premier automotive exhibition, “Driving America” is filled with a collection of some of the most important and recognizable from century-old electric cars, to old and new hybrids, muscle cars, racers and modern-day SUVs.
That’s a given, seeing how it’s the world-famous Henry Ford Museum. What’s new is the technology and how it’s applied. IT’s all built around…You.
“Driving America is different because it isn’t really about automobiles, but about how much the automobile has influenced American culture,” Bob Casey, Senior Curator of Transportation at The Henry Ford, said. “It thoroughly examines the car from a perspective seldom viewed, that of the user.”
Visitors receive a handy Driving America smart card upon entering the exhibit. A chip in the card stores information about what visitor experiences as he or she walks the exhibit. Various stations around the 80,000-square foot exhibit digitally transfer information to the smart card. Visitors later can download a personalized compilation of digital artifacts for online viewing and storage. Hundreds of artifacts on exhibit have their own digital record, so you can tap and enlarge, view automobile exterior and interior images, look at a 360-degree view, scan through original advertisements, repair manuals and more.
For those that are all about the cars themselves, Driving America doesn’t disappoint, offering up a stellar and unprecedented collection of some of the most important and recognizable from century-old electric cars, to old and new hybrids, muscle cars, racers and modern-day SUVs.
There’s nothing like seeing things with your own eyes. For starters, check out the 1865 Roper, the oldest surviving American car or the 1896 Duryea, it’s the last remaining example of America’s first production car. Also on exhibit are The 999, a 1902 racer designed and built by Henry Ford which helped propel the Ford Motor Company, and Old Number 16, the Locomobile which beat the world’s best cars in the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup Race on Long Island, New York. Time will stop when you stare at the 1967 Ford Mark IV race car, the first all-American car and team to win at Le Mans.
Driving America is a remarkable mix of hundreds of historically significant vehicles, artifacts, digital media, interactive play and personal accounts, this exhibit is like no other in the museum universe. The exhibition features 20 focal areas that cover everything from hot rods and road trips to road food and racing. Some 18 interactive 42-inch touchscreens are sprinkled throughout Driving America, offering hundreds of additional details, images, videos and oral histories.
Seeing is believing. And you’ll want to see it. The Henry Ford Museum really has put up the world’s premier automotive exhibition. It’s filled with cars, history and you. Click here to visit the exhibit online.