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Published: 08.30.2010
The Prince of the Detroit Royal Family
By: Margery Krevsky
Edsel and Eleanor Ford were the parents of four children. Henry Ford II was born in 1917, Bensen in 1919, Josephine in 1923 and William in 1925. The entire family moved to the Ford Estate home on Lakeshore Drive in Grosse Pointe at Christmas time in 1929.

Published: 08.23.2010
Ford's Boulevard Building: Branch Office and So Much More
By: Mike Imirie
The unexpected reference in the Business Section of the 'Detroit Free Press' surprised me. A story profiling a booming international construction firm called Lakeshore Engineering advised that the enterprise now made its headquarters in a former Ford factory at Woodward Avenue and West Grand Boulevard.

Published: 08.13.2010
The Crossfire Story
Although the 1998 ill-fated “merger of equals” between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler Corporation was a rocky marriage at best, the DaimlerChrysler union did produce some interesting automotive offspring prior to the 2007 divorce. Basic component sharing began in the Chrysler Pacifica and 300 and carried over to the Jeep Grand Cherokee. The Mercedes Sprinter van was simply rebadged as a Dodge and sold to U.S. consumers.

Published: 08.09.2010
The Spanish Conqueror
By: Margery Krevsky
One of the most successful car launches in automotive history was the entry of the DeSoto in 1929. The vehicles were built until 1961. Produced by Chrysler as a mid-priced vehicle it entered the market at a highly competitive time and helped lay claim to an empire. GM had the slogan a “car for every purse and purpose”.

Published: 08.02.2010
The Ultimate Auto Tour
By: Margery Krevsky
The creation of the Rouge River Plant began when Henry Ford started buying marshland along the Rouge River in 1915 eventually acquiring over 2,000 acres. Groundbreaking occurred in 1917 for the first Rouge building.

Published: 07.26.2010
A Checkered Past
By: Margery Krevsky
Our saga of the great American taxi begins at the start of the automotive business in the early 1900’s with an entrepreneur in the tailoring and clothier business named Morris Markin. He was a Russian immigrant transplanted to Chicago, Illinois.

Published: 07.19.2010
Woodward Avenue - the Spine of Detroit
Youd be hard pressed to name a thoroughfare in any American community that has meant more to a city than Woodward Avenue has to Detroit. The 27-mile, eight lane road, which runs from the heart of downtown Detroit to the city of Pontiac going northwest, is the locale for four star restaurants, professional sporting events, entertainment venues, and some of the most renowned museums anywhere.

Published: 07.12.2010
Plymouth Success and the Model Q
By: Margery Krevsky
Walter P. Chrysler founded Plymouth Motor Corporation in 1928. The first car was the Model Q, which sold as a 1929 model. The Model Q was built in the Highland Park Plant, which Chrysler received from the purchase of the Dodge Brothers earlier that year.

Published: 07.06.2010
The GM Building - Durant's Grand Street Marvel
No one ever accused the brilliant and eccentric auto man, William Billy Durant of thinking small. Through his Durant-Dort company, he helped make Flint the carriage capital of the nation, he founded one of the largest corporations in the world in General Motors in 1908 and, after being booted out of control of GM for a second time, he founded his own car company, appropriately named Durant Motors in the 1920s.

Published: 06.28.2010
Willow Run: The Factory and the B-24 Bombers
By: Margery Krevsky
The last B-24 rolled out of the plant on June 28, 1945. World War II dramatically affected the operations of Detroit automotive plants in the early 1940’s. Factories were taken over by the war effort to produce jeeps, tanks, bombers and machinery.

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