Ford has such a long, rich history of producing vehicles in the U.S. that it’s easy to assume it has the most significant ones in a museum. Yes, the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation has vehicles in it, but those aren’t its main focus. As the following video from CBS Saturday Morning shows, it wasn’t until several years ago that Ford became serious about organizing a collection of significant models here.
According to Ford historian Ted Ryan, Henry Ford II was of the opinion that Ford Motor Company should build cars, not collect them. Luckily, current CEO Jim Farley has a different way of looking at things, but it took him visiting a Ford collection in the UK to realize there should be something similar in the States. In late 2023, he sent out an email which said, “Go find the best of the vehicles in America and find a way to get them together so that our employees can learn from what we’ve done and enjoy the best of what Ford has done over the years,” as Ryan puts it.
After that, other Ford employees started coming out of the woodwork to tell Ryan about the cars they had squirreled away in various company buildings, such as the first F-150 and the last Mustang produced at Dearborn Assembly in 2004.
Overall, the Ford Heritage Fleet totals approximately 500 vehicles, nearly 200 of which are in the United States. Fifty of those are currently housed in the executive parking garage at Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. They range from first- and second-generation GT supercars to the doomed Ranger EV of the late-1990s and the 2004 Bronco concept, along with plenty of other one-offs that never made it into production. Of course, there are plenty of Mustangs in the collection, including the 10-millionth produced and the 2015 model that was disassembled, carried up the Empire State Building in pieces, and then put back together on the 86th floor to commemorate the pony car’s 50th anniversary.
If you were in charge of the Ford Heritage Fleet, what would you add to it? A first-year Thunderbird? A Harley-Davidson F-150? A 1968 Mustang GT 390? Tell us in the comments below.