Ford produced over 15 million Model T cars, making it the most widely sold car in history. Although most were made in Highland Park, Michigan, more than 100,000 Model Ts were produced in Cleveland. The Ford Motor Company established a sales and service office on Euclid Avenue in 1906. In 1911, it moved its Cleveland operations to a facility at East 72nd Street and St. Clair Avenue. And, in 1914, an assembly plant, located at 11610 Euclid Avenue, took parts made in Michigan and assembled Model Ts.
The Euclid Avenue assembly plant included a showroom and sales office on the first floor, facing onto Euclid Avenue. The second, the third, and fourth floors served as the assembly area. The plant was offered to the War Department during World War I and served as a storage depot for war materiel through 1918. By the next year the plant was again producing Model Ts.
In 1923, Ford updated the Cleveland plant to the "improved moving assembly" process, which was already being used in its Highland Park plant. The plant achieved its peak production in 1925, producing 225 vehicles per day while employing 1,600 people. The last Model T rolled off the line on May 31, 1927. Later that year the factory was retooled to produce the new Ford Model A.
In 1932, Ford began producing the Model B, but because of a large drop in sales and large company wide losses, Ford closed its Cleveland branch plant in December 1932. The building continued to serve as a Ford sales office until the beginning of World War II, at which point the company gave the factory to the federal government. The building was sold after the war and used as a warehouse. It has also been used as office space, artists' studios, and a public storage site. It is currently being used by the Cleveland Institute of Art as a studio and classroom space.
]]>In the late 1940s, the Ford Motor Company decided to expand its engine production facilities. Ford intended to build more manufacturing plants outside of the Detroit area, with this project calling for a new engine plant and foundry. Five states and hundreds of communities attempted to attract the project. In the end, Ford decided that a 204 acre site in the Village of Brook Park, Ohio would be the ideal place. The site lies along the main line of the New York Central Railroad which certainly made it attractive. The clinching argument, however, was that the nearby city of Cleveland was a port city on the Great Lakes, making it even more convenient to import raw materials into the plant and sending finished products out of it.
Therefore, In 1951, Ford built the Cleveland Engine plant, which was the first Ford engine plant in Ohio. The plant was the center of production for Ford's first overhead valve engine, the Lincoln V8. The engine foundry opened in 1952 to produce cast iron engine blocks. Also, in 1955, Ford built Engine Plant 2 on the site. Plant 2 was opened to produce the Y-block V8 for the Ford Thunderbird. Indeed, the plants have produced a wide variety of V6 and V8 engines throughout the years. The engines were used in cars, including everything from the Edsel to the Mustang, and in trucks like the F-100 and the F-150. By 1955, the Brook Park facility was the second largest Ford complex in the world behind only the River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan. Over 34 million engines have been built in Brook Park since 1951.
The plant has gone through a variety of changes in the nearly 60 years it has been in operation. During the 1960s the plant employed over 15,000 workers. Of that number, more than 10,000 worked in the casting plant's foundry. Yet, markets, economies, and techniques change, and the foundry closed in October 2010, leading to the loss of a number of jobs. The plant was no longer needed since most of Ford's engine blocks are now made of aluminum. The few iron engine blocks that Ford currently uses are produced by a company in Mexico.
Also, Engine Plant 1 was idled in 2007 and for a time employed only 72 workers. After a $350 million investment by Ford in 2009, the plant rebounded and employment numbers rose. In 2011, the plant was producing about 900 engines per day during its two shifts. However, in 2012 Engine Plant 2 shut down, leaving Engine Plant 1, with some 1,600 workers, as the only operational facility. The second plant site was more recently redeveloped as Forward Innovation Center, offering speculative facilities to lure new industry.
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]]>When people think of the auto industry, they usually think of Henry Ford and Detroit. What most people don't know is that in the 1890s Cleveland was the automobile capital of America. One reason for this was a Scottish immigrant and bicycle company owner named Alexander Winton.
The Winton Motor Carriage Company went into business on March 15, 1897. Their first automobiles were built by hand. Each vehicle had fancy painted sides, padded seats, a leather roof, and gas lamps. B.F. Goodrich made the tires for Winton. By 1897, Winton had already produced two fully operational prototype automobiles. In May of 1897, the 10 horsepower model achieved the astonishing speed of 33.64 mph on a test around a Cleveland horse track. However, people were still skeptical of the new invention. To prove his automobile's durability and usefulness, Alexander Winton had his car undergo an 800-mile endurance run from Cleveland to New York City.
On March 24, 1898 Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania became one of the first men to buy an American-built automobile when he bought a Winton for around $1,000. Allison had seen an advertisement for the car in Scientific American. Later that year the Winton Motor Carriage Company sold twenty-one more vehicles. One of those customers was James Ward Packard, who would later become the founder of Packard automobile company. It is believed that Packard was not satisfied with his car and complained to Winton. The story goes that Winton challenged him to do better. That same year, Leo Melanowski, Winton's Chief Engineer, invited Henry Ford to come to Cleveland for an interview at the Winton Company. Alexander Winton was not impressed with Henry and decided not to hire him. Henry went back to Detroit to continue working on his second Quadricycle. These miscues would eventually come back to haunt Winton.
More than one hundred Winton vehicles were sold in 1898, making the company the largest manufacturer of gas-powered automobiles in the United States. By 1901, widespread publicity continued to increase interest in the Wintons. That year, news that members of the wealthy Vanderbilt family had purchased Winton automobiles boosted the company's image substantially. It was around this time that Winton built a new factory complex at 10601 Berea Road, on Cleveland's far west side. Later that year, however, a Winton automobile lost a race near Detroit to one of Henry Ford's cars. Winton vowed to come back and defeat Ford. He produced the 1902 Winton Bullet, which set an unofficial land speed record of 70 mph in Cleveland that year. Despite its speed, 'The Bullet' was defeated by another Ford later in the year. The company received some positive publicity In 1903, though, when Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson made the first successful automobile drive across the United States in a Winton. The trip took 64 days, including breakdowns, delays while waiting for parts to arrive, and the time it took hoisting the Winton up and over rocky terrain and mudholes.
In the 1910s Winton continued to market his expensive, custom-made cars primarily to wealthy consumers. This would eventually lead to the company's downfall, as by the 1920s Winton was unable to compete with the less expensive, mass produced cars like those made on Henry Ford's assembly lines. In 1922, Winton made only 690 cars, and on February 11, 1924, the Winton Motor Car Co. ceased car production.
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