N.K. Reid Impressed with What He Saw in Detroit, March 21, 1926

Reid Returns from Journey to Detroit. . . Ford Dealer Says Trip to the Ford Plant Was Great Education for Him

“I certainly learned a lot during the two days I was in Detroit,” N.K. Reid, local Ford dealer, said today upon his return home from the Motor City, where he spent two days visiting the big plants of the Ford Motor Company along with a number of other Ford dealers from this territory.

“It has been a great education to me,” he continued. “I never imagined anything so enormous.

“We arrived early in the morning, our train being switched right into the yards of the Highland Park plant. First, we went through the Highland Park plant—that is part of it, the most interesting divisions. You know, they told us that the area of that plant is 278 acres with 105 acres of it under roof.

“But that is nothing compared to the River Rougle plant where the big operations are carried on. There is where raw materials are transformed and come out in the form of parts for Ford cars.

“And buildings! Say, you should see the new buildings for pressed steel operations. That’s a real building, one story high, mostly glass and it covers eight acres of ground. Why if they would clear out the machinery in that building there would be enough room on the floor to park more than 5,000 Ford cars.

“We also visited the big engineering laboratory at Dearborn, the Ford airport and the Lincoln car plant.

“Things that impressed me most, aside from the buildings and machinery, were the cleanliness about all the plants, the safety devices and methods to prevent accidents and the absence of any real hard human labor. Machinery is made to do all the hard work.

“Another thing was the precision of manufacture. Every part is made to exact measurement and though manufacture proceeds rapidly there is no let up in inspection. Every part must be of correct dimensions otherwise assembly of cars on the scale on which Ford production is carried out would be impossible. I wish I could impart to all my friends the appreciation of Ford value that I have gained as a result of my visit to Detroit.”

From page 2 of the Concord Daily Tribune, Monday, March 21, 1926

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