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Locations

Welcome to MotorCities National Heritage Area (MotorCities), where you can Experience Everything Automotive! We invite you to join us as we take a drive down memory lane, gaze into the future and share with you an amazing automotive journey.

Pull out a calendar, road map and pen, and let the fun begin! We invite you to browse the many wonderful automotive museums, homes and gardens, tours and sporting events located in MotorCities and plot your path through the heart of the American automotive industry. If you need help, we're ready to jump in! Whether your visit lasts a few hours or a few days, you are guaranteed an exciting variety of places to see and things to do.

With over 100 sites and experiences waiting to be explored, go ahead and choose your category of interest - and get ready to Experience Everything Automotive!

City

Tours

Interest

By 1850, several builders of "horse-drawn" vehicles and carriage-makers soon spread throughout Pontiac and became a major industry by 1900 at a time when Michigan…
In 1956, the Pontiac Motor Division knew that it had to increase sales or be shut down for good. New ideas ranged from "wide track"…
Inventive and competitive people were drawn to Pontiac, or inspired here, by the city's industrial culture and in patent drawings they left a record of…
The basic V8 engine design that Pontiac Motor Division had generated had served the company well for twenty-six years. In the 1960s, talented and onnovative…
The Detroit & Pontiac Railroad started it all, running a right-of-way into the city in 1843 that is still operating today under the Canadian National…
Formed in 1927 and originally called the Art & Colour Section, its first director, Harley Earl, established separate design studios for each General motors division…
One of Ford’s many village industries was built here thanks to the river that flowed through Ypsilanti. This was a big one, with over one…
Detroit has more Industrial and Mechanical Engineers than any other metropolitan region in America. Advancements in computer modeling, materials, mass production and vertical integration are…
The Ypsilanti-based automaker tried to capture the post-WWII auto market with his “car of tomorrow,” the Tucker 48. Legal troubles, however, put an early end…
Incorporated after the coming of the automobile, this plant at 701 May moved to the 700 block of East Saginaw to become one of the…
Nestled along the banks of the Grand River and housed in the original factory of the Bates and Edmonds Motor Company, the R.E. Olds Transportation…
Milwaukee Junction grew at the intersection of two railroad lines, the north-south line of the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railroad and the east-west line…
Until electrical refrigeration became common in the 1940s, food was best perserved during warmer months in "iceboxes" with ice blocks harvested from lakes during the…
Ransom E. Olds founded a machine shop in Lansing that produced small engines, carriages, windmills, and other equipment used by farmers and and businesses. The…
Interurban service became the most successful mode of transportation through Roseville in the early 1900s. Starting in 1895, the Rapid Railway Company ran electric interurbans…
Albert North and Harry Hamilton relocated their Pontiac Spring & Wagon Works to larger premises in 1899 to boost their output of carriages, wagons, and…
At Cass Lake Road the light rail electric trolley track that was built in 1899 is still noticeable. It served communities from Pontiac through Farmington…
Here is where two railways came together in the 1880s with the West Bloomfield Trail following the path of the Grand Trunk Railwoad. In 1900,…
Visit the global headquarters for General Motors and one of downtown Detroit's iconic pieces of architecture. Tours of Michigan's tallest building are given Monday through…
The Rentschler Farm in Saline, MI served as a source of farm produce to city dwellers in the 1900s and today the museum tells the…
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