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- This place was built
I think around about 1954 or '53.
And you think that every Vice President of Design
has worked here in some capacity,
and all the cars that have been here you know,
and if this place could tell stories
then there'd be a few stories to tell.
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This is the place where designs have been chosen,
where we showed themes,
where we actually work.
We actually use it as a working building as well
in terms of we bring the clays in here,
we use it to stand back and look at with teams
and we modify it.
So, its had a lot of use over the years
and it's sad to see the place go.
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Obviously anything that's on the roads in the U.S.
from Ford came through this building,
really since 1955 through to present days.
I think it was a place of pride as well
that we had this standalone secret place as well,
the courtyard that's out at the back was there then as well
and I think there was a real sense of comradery
as the present day in terms of this as this was our place
and this is designed,
and I remember actually a story about the curtains here,
and we actually can see these curtains,
which are full width and really big
We actually sent them out to get dry cleaned,
I think in the early two thousands,
and for some reason, they came back pink.
And we had pink curtains for quite a few years,
and all we're gonna know,
no one didn't know the story
and we'd understand why we'd think
adjacent to the Show room,
is a corridor we should call Mahogany Road
and it's beautiful curved raw CORA covered corridor,
which is very sort of trendy back in the 60s
So you couldn't see the end of it.
It is paneled with Mahogany
and it was the place where all the design executives,
where the design directors design chairs
for their color materials used to be upside upstairs
when product development moved into the PDC as well,
the Mahogany row became sort of the place for all the VPs
and directors for product development.
Interesting enough, William Clay Ford,
had an office there up to a few years ago
because he at one time was in charge of design
so he refused that he was in charge
of styling it forward in the 50s I believe.
Obviously the prior vice presidents have all
worked in this building you know, when I came here,
Jack Tenace like was, was the vice president
and then of course J Mays,
but also the three prior to that
were also involved in the building itself.
And also we've had you,
we've had other people have shown here,
for example, you know, Jeremy McGovern from Land Rover,
we'd bring his Land Rover's chairman
when Ford was involved with Land Rover,
Jeff Lawson from Jaguar would have been here
to show Jaguar products.
So it's not just Ford products that we're showing here,
it's actually some really important people
and some really important products in the past history.
When the showroom and studio West was built,
we built a courtyard also adjacent to the studio,
and the courtyard is it likely Sure,
it's a great space for us to stand back and look at cars.
And it's immense and you can put in, you know,
maybe 10 competitor cars in there as well,
which is really good.
So it's just again, it's just really useful
for the designers to be able to assess the vehicle,
look at the volumes, look at the proportions.
It has a turntable in the center as well,
so we can rotate the car too.
So it's really useful and it's really like,
and obviously in the summer weather
we use that a lot more than we'd use it in the winter.
We've had some fun events in the courtyard as well,
one time, one of our designers without someone's permission
actually brought a Mustang
and then drifted around the courtyard.
We also use the courtyard for an annual car show event
and the designers bring their cars and we have food trucks.
We have special events here,
where we have a bring your kids
to work day we use a showroom
and so they can come in here,
they can practice clay modeling,
they can see people drawing.
So we use that.
So it's a nice social events.
We've had to attend too.
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