It’s your birthday Detroit, how about a history lesson?

Posted on by farlane


Hotel Pontchartrain and Cadillac Square from City Hall, 1916, photo by Detroit Publishing Co, via Shorpy

Hello Detroit, it’s your birthday!*

History Detroit tells the story of Cadillac and the founding of Detroit on July 24, 1701. They explain how Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac made a plan with his mentor and Governor General of New France, Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, to found a new settlement at the south of Lake Huron to increase security of French interests on the Great Lakes. Frontenac died, and his successor was not fond of Cadillac so:

Cadillac set sail for France in 1698 in order to convince King Louis to allow him to found a new settlement lower in the Great Lakes. Specifically, he was interested in the area south of Lake Huron known as le détroit, or the straits.

The area known as le détroit was ideal for a new settlement because the land was fertile, the location on the river was felt to be easily defended against the British and the climate was more hospitable than that in the more northern settlements like Michilimackinac.

Cadillac returned to Quebec, then travelled to Montreal where he gathered canoes, farmers, traders, artisans, soldiers, and Native Americans to accompany him on his quest. The men set sail on June 4, 1701.

Cadillac and his men reached the Detroit River on July 23, 1701. The following day, July 24, 1701, the group traveled north on the Detroit River and chose a place to build the settlement. Cadillac named the settlement Fort Ponchartrain du Detroit in honor of King Louis’s Minister of Marine.

Read More About Fort Ponchartrain and Cadillac.

You have to check this photo from Shorpy (a great blog where you can also buy these old prints) background bigtacular to see the amazing detail and activity captured including the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the bottom left corner. Here are earlier views of the hotel circa 1907, minus the upper floors, and 1910, minus most of the cars, and here’s Shorpy’s entire Detroit Michigan historic archive.

Need more? There’s a whole lot more Detroit on Michigan in Pictures and at absolutemichigan.com/Detroit.

* I feel a little weird giving a history lesson as a birthday present.

Hand-building automobile bodies: Michigan’s Automobile Factories, 1900-1961

Posted on by farlane

Packard Factory, Detroit, 1910, courtesy of the National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library

The Michigan Radio Picture Project has a new feature titled Michigan’s Automobile Factories, 1900-1961 edited by Doug Aikenhea. It’s a fantastic tour through Michigan’s automobile heritage, that takes you from hand-built wooden auto bodies to sheet metal & assembly lines. It features well known factories in Detroit, Flint & Lansing like Ford, Buick and Chrysler along with lesser known ones such as Durant-Dort, Fisher, Chalmers & Maxwell. They write:

The industrial adventurers and entrepreneurs who launched Michigan’s automobile industry came from various backgrounds. Some of them began as carriage makers, like William C. Durant who would go on to found General Motors in 1908. The earliest automobiles, like their horse-drawn predecessors, were constructed largely from wood and were built individually until the assembly line evolved to accelerate production and incorporate standardized, mass-produced parts. As automobile manufacturing progressed, the role of the worker changed from traditional craftsman to skilled assembly line specialist. This series of historical photographs traces the evolution of Michigan automobile factories from 1900 until 1961.

Click through for more!

(re) Enter the Delorean: 2010 Detroit Auto Show

Posted on by farlane

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, photo courtesy North American International Auto Show

It’s a measure of how far the auto industry has fallen that I’ve barely heard a peep about the 2010 North American International Auto Show. What was once (still is?) the biggest event in Michigan opens to the public today through January 24th. We’ll hopefully have something on Absolute Michigan next week, but until then, check out the Freep and Detroit News coverage, Jalopnik’s Detroit Auto show page and the NAIAS slideshow in the Absolute Michigan pool, which should be updated as pool photographers attend the show!

Here’s a page on the gull-winged Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. No word as to whether it’s flux capacitor ready…

Photos from the 2009 Woodward Dream Cruise

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

car abstract

car abstract, photo by *Alysa*.

The 2009 Woodward Dream Cruise is in the rearview mirror but even if you missed it, you can see some great photos in the Woodward Dream Cruise slideshow from the Absolute Michigan pool. See this bigger in Alysa’s slideshow.

There’s tons more in the Woodward Dream Cruise slideshow from all Flickr users and also the Woodward Dream Cruise group.

If you wonder where it all got started, check out Cruisin’ the Original: Woodward Avenue on Michigan in Pictures.

The New “New” GM

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

camo car

camo car, photo by daveraoul.

Dave’s take on the “new” GM. Be sure to check it out bigger.

Check out Chapter & Verse on the General Motors Bankruptcy on Absolute Michigan for much more.

Driving off in a Chrysler

Posted on by farlane

Chrysler 300 – Walter P. Chrysler Museum, photo by MikeRyu

And then there were two…

Yesterday the Chrysler Corporation announced a plan for their acquisition by Fiat and filed for bankruptcy. Wikipedia’s Chrysler entry has a good overview of the company from its founding in 1924 by Walter P. Chrysler as a result of his reorganization of the Maxwell Motor Company through the building of the company into a global powerhouse, the Lee Iaccoca led rescue of Chrysler to the stumbling Daimler-Benz & Cerebus era.

The Walter P Chrysler Museum has a much more detailed timeline and all the Chrysler brands (Hudson, Valiant, Nash, Chalmers, Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Imperial, Jeep, etc).

See this picture bigger in Mike’s slideshow of photos from Mike’s visit to the Chrysler Museum and see thousands more photos of Chryslers right here.

2009 Detroit Auto Show – January 17-25

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

MotorShowNetwork-NAIAS-2009-chrysler-jeep-patriotI0002

MotorShowNetwork-NAIAS-2009-chrysler-jeep-patriotI0002, photo by TechShowNetwork.

The 2009 North American International Auto Show takes place January 17-25, 2009 at Cobo Center in Detroit. You can get all kinds of stories about the Detroit Auto Show at Absolute Michigan. One of my favorite stories we’ve posted about it is this great column by Jack Lessenberry. Check it (and the show) out if you can!

This photo is part of a great 300+ picture slideshow from the media preview of the and is courtesy MotorShowNetwork.com and copyright Jochen Siegle/MOtorShowNetwork and shows Chrysler unveiling their ENVI electric-drive vehicle the Jeep Patriot EV at the media preview.

Speaking of slideshows, here’s the auto-magically generated 2009 NAIAS slideshow from Flickr!

Piquette Plant sunset … or is that a sunrise?

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Piquette Plant sunset

Piquette Plant sunset, photo by LindaB..

Yesterday on Absolute Michigan we featured an article from Michigan History Magazine titled Where the Model T began and I found this photo while looking for a picture to pair with it. I decided to find another and feature this one here!

Jerald Mitchell calls the Ford Motor Company’s Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit “a fulcrum point of human history [where] the balance of history shifted.” It was at this factory in Detroit that Henry Ford and his cohorts conceived the Model T automobile. For nine months, these men labored through fifteen-hour days, scrawled rough diagrams on the blackboards, fiddled with auto parts and patterns, argued and probably repeated the words “what if” a thousand times. When they were done, they had created the design for one of the most revolutionary automobiles ever built.

Read the rest on Absolute Michigan and learn much more about the museum that Jerald and others have created at tplex.org – the Model T Automotive Heritage Complex.

Linda writes she and her husband took a tour of the Ford Model T Piquette plant where restoration is underway. She says that the plant has special meaning for them as her husband’s great great grandfather was the winning bid for the plumbing of the building with a bid of $2,035! She also notes that these are the original windows to the plant.

You can see her other photos from the Piquette Plant, check out these Piquette photos from Miz Jelly Bean and dive into the Piquette slideshow on Flickr.

The Zilwaukee Bridge

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

The Zilwaukee Bridge

The Zilwaukee Bridge, photo by Mario.Q.

This photo is part of Mario’s Zilwaukee Bridge set (slideshow). He writes:

The Zilwaukee Bridge carries northbound and southbound I-75 125 feet over the Saginaw River at Zilwaukee, MI with a total length of just over 8,000 ft. This high level bridge replaced a drawbridge at the same location that caused major backups on I-75 with frequent openings for ship traffic going from Saginaw, MI to the Great Lakes. With a major and widely publicized construction mishap and huge budget overruns this is one of the more widely know bridges in the State of Michigan.

You can read much more about this star-crossed bridge in Wikipedia’s Zilwaukee Bridge entry, but the best resource is michiganhighways.org. There you can find The Zilwaukee Bridge: From the Beginning by MDOT. This details the whole story including “The Accident“. There’s also a bunch of photos of the bridge including an aerial view and an annotated aerial view.

There used to be blue skies at General Motors…

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

There used to be blue skies at General Motors...

There used to be blue skies at General Motors…, photo by Derek Farr ( DetroitDerek ).

This photo is part of Derek’s great Detroit set of photos (slideshow). Derek writes:

A view out of General Motors World Headquarters, located in the Rencen Building in Downtown Detroit. There was a time that even thinking of General Motors running out of cash would be laughable … not anymore.

Indeed. This morning I’ve read editorials in the leading papers on both sides of the aisle that show a rising sentiment against the Detroit car companies. In Bailout to Nowhere in the New York Times, David Brooks suggests that it’s a bad idea to try and manage the economic jungle that claimed PanAm, ITT and Montgomery Ward and replaced them with Microsoft, Southwest Airlines and Target.

In the Wall Street Journal Robert Hahn and Peter Passell suggest that we should Stimulate Car Buyers, Not Car Makers:

Since a big fiscal-stimulus package for fighting the recession — some combination of tax cuts, extended unemployment compensation, infrastructure grants and assistance to states — is coming soon, why not stimulate consumers to buy cars? Why not offer eye-popping rebates — say, $3,000 — for a limited time to buyers of cars and light trucks? It would probably make sense to phase out rebates for the most expensive cars, and as a treaty obligation, it wouldn’t do to discriminate against foreign makes.

How much downstream benefit this would generate and for whom is hard to predict. Still, it is a fair bet that most of the money would be quickly recycled in the form of demand for everything from auto parts to car mechanics’ salaries — just what you want to happen in a recession.

What do you think? Are we watching the sunset of the Big Three … and will the sun rise for them and for the Michigan auto industry?

Ercy posted a link to GM Facts & Fiction. It’s by GM, but I think that GM has a part of the story to tell too. Found an interesting column in the Freep through their links by Susan Tompor titled Where’s the love? I never knew Detroit was a dirty word (please go read it). She makes a lot of great points including:

We’re watching one huge disconnect here.

We have the worst financial crisis that most of us have ever seen. Automakers sell big-ticket items that generally require financing. Michigan has been in a recession for years — not just a few months. We are on the edge. And somehow, still, no one here deserves any help.

General Wesley Clark suggests that aiding the American automobile industry is not only an economic imperative, but also a national security imperative in What’s Good for GM is Good for the Army.