When Ford Built a Mile-Long Factory to Produce Airplanes

In 1938, airplanes were still a novelty to most Americans, the Great Depression was still in full swing, and President Roosevelt was watching events in Europe that would lead to another war. Although it would be years before America joined in, he knew the US had to be ready. Roosevelt asked for 10,000 airplanes; congress approved only half as many. But within a couple of years, it seemed inevitable that the US Army Air Corps would need exponentially more. The government enlisted the Ford automotive company to make airplane parts, but when Ford executives saw how slowly airplanes were built, they went all in on making them entirely. After all, they were famous for churning out cars fast on an assembly line. Planes, however, would need a bigger line.   

In 1941, Ford built the Willow Run plant in Detroit to build B-24 Liberators. At the time, it was the largest factory in the world, with an assembly line over a mile long. They also built a runway to test the planes. With thousands of workers at a time, the plant produced a B-24 every 63 minutes, 248 of them in one month! Read how the Willow Run plant helped to win World War II at Jalopnik.