Review: Detroit's Ford Rouge Factory Reveals Just How Far American Industry Has Come

The factory has changed a lot, from making Model T parts to making Mustangs to assembling electric Ford F-150s.

When a friend kindly offered to drive me home to the Detroit area after a semester at college, he had one request: He wanted to see a car factory. I was skeptical I could pull that off—but lo and behold, Ford offers tours of its Rouge Factory as part of The Henry Ford museum complex.

Most factories are not known for their design, but parts of the complex were designed over a century ago by legendary Detroit architect Albert Kahn. Nor are factories known for the art they inspired, but Diego Rivera spent months at the factory doing research for his Detroit Industry Murals, featured in the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Many factories are, however, known for labor strife, and the Rouge factory has that too: 1937's Battle of the Overpass. Combine all that and you get a working factory that's also on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

The factory has changed a lot, from making Model T parts to making Mustangs to assembling electric Ford F-150s. The factory floor is cleaner and safer than the discourse over factory jobs may lead you to believe, though the jobs still aren't the right fit for anyone who doesn't want to work on their feet or listen to a cacophony of machinery and car horns all day.

The automation is evident in the ever-present twisting and turning of robotic arms. The global influence is harder to see, but it is there: Less than a third of the content of the 2024 model F-150 comes from the U.S. or Canada, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and it's less than a quarter for the electric version.