Inside Ford’s $1bn Secret Bunker! ｜ Secret Stash

Imagine walking through the no-entry doors at America's biggest motoring museum, to a place the public aren't allowed to go. What cars would lurk in those secret archives waiting to tell their stories? Well it probably looks something like this. This is the storage facility for the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan, and I've been very lucky to be joined by Matt Anderson, curator of transport here at the museum. Matt, thanks for your time. My pleasure. I'm just going to throw it over to you, and you can talk me around some of the amazing exhibits which are in here, which the public wouldn't normally get to see. Yeah, we have about 300 automobiles in the museum's collection, and maybe a third of those are out on display at any one time, so always more in storage than out in public, which is typical at museums. But we've got some great stuff back here. There's a 1912 Baker Electric. This was purchased by William Howard Taft, president of the United States at that time, and was used by his wife Helen Taft, and she did drive it herself. She enjoyed the pleasures of motoring as did many people at that time, and then it stayed at the White House after the Tafts left and was used by the next four first ladies as well, well into the late 1920s. That's phenomenal. Five first ladies drove this EV with its tiller steering. I mean, range? Do we know what the range was on something like this? Range on something like this? Probably in the low 30 miles, so don't go too far. I don't know if the first lady pops to the shops that often. As a complete contrast, this looks phenomenal. What am I looking at here? This was a special car built for Ford's 50th anniversary in 1953. It is the Ford X100, and they advertise it as having 50 innovations for the anniversary. Got some really cool stuff like heated seats. It's got a rear windshield wiper. Has jacks built into all four corners. If you get a flat tire, the car lifts itself up. Also has some kind of strange things in it too, including a telephone with a Dictabelt voice recorder. Has a variable volume horn. Also had an electric razor in the glove box, so people could shave, I guess, while you were driving. Ah, you see, those are the days when people had, you know, smartness. Didn't you say as well it had like a rain sensor in the roof? Yes, yeah, the front portion of the roof folds back there and open up, and if you leave the car outside, it starts to rain, the car will close itself up. So they thought of everything. They really did. I mean, this has got so much stuff that we take for granted on modern cars, but this is 1950... 1953, and it's all fully functional. When they took this car to car shows, they drove it on its own four tires. So it's the real deal. That's phenomenal. What a great piece of unique Americana. Next to, I don't know my American cars, but I think this is a Lincoln. Absolutely, yeah. This is what, from the mid-2000s or something? 1996, a little earlier than that. It's a Lincoln Sentinel Show car, and this one does not run, but it was built for the North American International Show here in Detroit as kind of a show car that highlights the greatest hits of Lincoln's design over the years. So the waterfall grille is very much like the original Continentals of the late 30s, early 40s. And then you see that crease along the side, reminds me a lot of the 1960s Continentals. So, beautiful car. Yeah, that's a really modern looking thing. I would not have thought that was from the mid-90s. Right, come on then. Take me down here and show me other stuff you're proud of. We've got a Ford Model T and a Ford Model A here. Pretty common cars, but these are special. They actually belong to Henry Ford himself. So... No way, really? Yes. And he went for black as well, because he had to. It's hard to tell in the light. Believe it or not, this is actually a dark green. So the black applied to everyone but Henry Ford. He could get whatever colour he wanted. But it's a 1919, but he kept making changes to it over the years. Every time they introduced some new part on the T, he would have it incorporated in this. So you end up with parts from four or five different model years all rolled into one. And did Henry Ford, given that he was an incredibly wealthy man around this time, did he have it kind of deluxed up? Was it have more features, more kind of comfort? The interior is much nicer than a typical Model T. We already mentioned the colour, which is different than a Model T. So yes, I think it's fair to say this is not the kind of thing you could have bought in a typical Ford showroom. I guess if you're the boss, there are certain perks, right? That's very cool. I mean, let's carry on. There's so much to go through here. This is a bit of a privilege. Got a 1910 Buick over here, which would have been a little upmarket from where the T was. But again, an open touring car. As you can already tell, Matt's brain is a bottomless vault of knowledge on his prized exhibits. And if you're wondering why the secret vault looks like an old office floor, that's because this used to be exactly that. Nondescript office space for the Ford Motor Company. Part of the design department, in fact. No windows and once just full of booths, faxes and clip-on ties. Ah, something will make you feel at home here. A 1949 MGTC. Ah, fellow Brits at last. I mean, it looks so tiny in here. What's this doing here? Well, you know, we don't collect a whole lot of foreign cars, but they had a big influence on the US market. And, you know, you wouldn't have Corvette or Thunderbird without these. So got to have one in the collection. Good for the Brits there. Okay, well, we're moving into more like luxurious looking stuff here. I can see an incredible bonnet ornament here. There's a hood ornament, sorry, I should say. There's a few of these around here. What are we looking at with this beautiful swan? Yes, look at it. It's actually a Canada goose on the front there. This is a 1926 Will St. Clair. They were built up in Marysville, Michigan. Oh, a little north of Detroit where we are now. Closer to Port Huron, but on the Canadian border. So it seemed appropriate to have a Canada goose on the front. The company was founded by a man named Harold Wills, who was one of the original engineers behind Ford's Model T. So after his run at Ford Motor Company, he went off to form his own car company. Didn't last as long as Ford Motor Company, I'm afraid, but good effort. Yeah, well, certainly good effort on the bonnet ornament. I mean, again, changing eras. I love this kind of super chrome slammed hot rod looking era, though I have no idea what it is. 1949 Mercury. Those are beloved by custom builders. And this is a gorgeous example actually done by George Barris, who was very famous in the US in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond for doing beautiful custom car work in Southern California. Just looks like it could be a character out of the Disney Cars franchise, doesn't it? It's got that kind of toothy smile to it. OK, Matt, now I know you're like the car guru, but I have to ask you about the bicycle collection, particularly what on earth is going on here? Yeah, you've heard of a bicycle built for two. This is a bicycle built for 10. It was made by the Orient Manufacturing Company here in the US in the 1890s. And it is what is called a pace setter bicycle. So if you had somebody on a regular bicycle trying to set a speed record, they would hire a team of 10 people to ride in front of them in this and they would basically draft behind it, just like racing cars draft, you know. To give you the slipstream. Exactly right. But wait, so how fast would 10 strong guys or girls on this actually go? If everyone was pedaling at their full potential, they could hit about 45 miles an hour on this. Wow, goodness me. Now, I bet you couldn't on this. This looks like it's made out of solid mahogany. Yeah, that's about the earliest ancestor to the modern bicycle. That is an 1818 Draisine designed in Germany. But it's really just a hobby horse. No pedals, no gears or anything like that. But you could still move a little faster than you would walking. I mean, my eyes are watering just looking at how uncomfortable that is. Let's get back onto cars. Take it away. What's caught your eye down here? Yeah, I've got a 35 Ford over here with the flathead Ford V8. And it also has one of the first kind of integrated trunks, rather than the trunk being a literal trunk on the back of the car. So predecessor of modern three box design. Streamline beauty from the 1930s. This is a DeSoto Airflow. These cars came out. They were a little too avant-garde, I think, for the American market. Like the Chrysler Airflow as well. They kind of struggled, didn't they? People actually liked the upright styling, didn't they? I guess it's like automotive design now. People don't like it when there's a really radical change. Exactly. It was just a little too much too quickly. But a beautiful car in retrospect. Had an early Doble steam car over here from the 1920s. So a steam car? Yes, steam powered car. Next to it, a sort of electric car. This is a 1915 Owen Magnetic, which is a little like a modern diesel electric locomotive. It had a gasoline engine, but it powered a generator for an electric motor. And the motor is what actually drove the car. So that's almost a kind of range extender hybrid sort of thing. Yeah, the big advantage at the time was you had the power and speed of a gasoline engine, but you didn't have to shift gears like you would in a conventional gasoline transmission at that time. And what about the steam car? Is someone having to like shove coal in it as it's going along? They would usually burn gasoline as well or kerosene to get the flame going. So not like a steam locomotive? Not quite, but... Interesting. What on earth has happened to this poor thing? Just to jump forward a few eras. Is rust eaten away through the bonnet? We've got a Ford Escort here from about 1981. And yes, this is a show car. So it's cut away on one side, so you can see all the engineering that lies underneath the body. Very nice. Ford Thunderbird, I recognize that. Kind of one of those retro designs that sort of didn't last, I guess. Unlike the Mustang or the Beetle or the Mini, which has been successful. That one kind of didn't make it. Exactly. But yeah, that was a big rage right around the turn of the 21st century. People doing retro styling cues in production cars. Cool. More bicycles, of course. That looks very steampunk down here. Like that bicycle without a chain. That was built in the early 1930s. It was a father who worked in a scrapyard. It was during the Great Depression. His son wanted a bike more than anything in the world. They couldn't afford a new one, so the father actually put that together from bits of scrap metal. So quite a story behind it. It's got metal tires. That's the most uncomfortable looking vehicle in the world. It won't be very comfortable, but you won't get a flat tire either. That's a very good point. Matt, I thought you were running a museum, not an aquarium. What on earth is the Shark? That Shark has a great story behind it. If you're familiar with historic Corvettes, you might know the Mako Shark Corvette concept car, which essentially was the design predecessor for the 1963 Stingray, one of the most beautiful cars of all time. The shape of that car was inspired by a shark that was caught by Bill Mitchell, head of design at General Motors. Stingray was inspired by a shark? Well, different aquatic name, but yes. Their marine biology was off, but their car design was on point, because like you say, it was gorgeous. Exactly. And that is the actual shark that Bill Mitchell caught on his vacation in Bermuda. So very historic fish hanging on the wall there. So how did they preserve it? Well, they basically took the original Shark and made a mold of it. Oh, I'm with you. Not a real shark. That's how they did the taxidermy. The car underneath it? Yes, one of Mitchell's all-time greats in 1963, Buick Riviera. Gorgeous car. Yeah, gorgeous color as well. Lovely. Let's have a look at the interior. I mean, yeah, those seats just look comfortable. This is a personal luxury car that was followed in the wake of the Ford Thunderbird. It's a sporty looking car, but with a little more refinement, more comfortable ride. I was going to ask, do you keep the cars unlocked? Can we open the door or are they all locked up and secure? Most of them are locked up actually back here, so I apologize. No, not at all. And what about like the condition of them? Are they sort of mothball drained engines out or they could be started if you needed to? Yeah, we generally drain the fluids and kind of mothball them, use that term when we put them into storage. Frankly, we just don't have the resources to keep them running because we'd spend all day just driving cars. Not that that would be a bad thing, but we have other things to do. We do have a few that we run on a regular basis and theoretically with enough time and money, just about anything in here could be put back into operation. So if Hollywood called and said, we absolutely must have this car in this color running in our new movie, you could probably get it recommissioned and out on the street. If we needed to get that one running for some reason. Awesome. All right, on to the next one. We'll resist temptation just to look at the Sprint car. Have you got any favorites down here? I've always been fond of the Studebaker Avanti over here, designed by Raymond Lowy and a team of designers in the early 1960s, a time when Studebaker's fortunes were falling pretty quickly, but a beautiful car and looks very much ahead of its time. Yeah, it's super streamlined. I mean, Lowy was an incredible man. He designed locomotives, buildings, household appliances. He was kind of like that king of that 1930s sort of art deco streamline, modernist look, right? Yeah, one of the great industrial designers in the United States, no question beyond. Again, I would have thought that was a lot more modern than where you said it was the 60s. Yeah, 1962. Wow. I don't recognize this. So we've got another concept car? It is, yeah. Built in 1998 by Ford Motor Company. And this is interesting in retrospect. It almost looks like an original crossover vehicle or something that wouldn't look too unusual on the streets today, but never made it into production. Really? So at the time, people were like, a smaller SUV? Who would need such a thing? Exactly. And then the Pontiac Aztec came along. You see, if you'd bought this, then the Aztec may never have happened. Imagine Walter White had one of those in Breaking Bad. Okay, we've got lots of lovely pre-war kind of stuff here. Ford official pace car, 500 mile race 53. Indy 500? Exactly right. Another car from Ford's 50th anniversary. Ford was invited to provide the pace car for that year's Indianapolis 500. And this is it. This is not one of the 2,000 replicas that were built. This was the actual pace car that led the field at the brickyard that year. So gorgeous car. And they tell us that the gold flake there on the paint on the side includes actual bits of 18 karat gold in it. We've never done any testing to confirm it, but I'd like to think it's true. So would this have gone off to an owner afterwards and had a normal life? Or has it always lived in the museum? Always lived in the museum. Ford owned it, took it to the track, brought it back and then gave it to us. We've had it pretty much since race days. So that's probably the mintiest 53 Ford in existence then. Original unrestored, for sure. Fantastic. Okay, speaking of motorsport, let's jump to this sort of, what is this, an 80s, 90s NASCAR here? 1987 Ford Thunderbird driven by one of NASCAR's all-time greats, Bill Elliott. And this is the car that he drove at Talladega and set NASCAR's all-time speed record, about 212 miles an hour in this car. And they kind of determined that was a little too fast for safety, so they started going for stricter plates. So this is one of those racing cars in history then where it's, yeah, they've said too much, too fast every now and again. Like with the Gordon Murray fan car, the Brabham in Formula 1, they said it's too fast, we're going to ban it. This is a similar kind of thing. Exactly the same. Compared to how the NASCAR's are today with the seats that wrap around the driver, you can't believe how little protection there is in there. Yeah, this is, I mean, even this is not too much stock left in it, but yeah, it's very different even from today's cars, which are far more safe in terms of the appliances and equipment. Let's look behind the camera here. Traditional, is this a New York yellow cab? Yes, this is actually out of Chicago. Yellow Cab Company made their own cars for a period of time in the 1920s, and this one was built by Yellow. Interestingly, before it came to us, one of the previous owners was Warner Brothers, the motion picture studio, so this was used as a prop in who knows how many Hollywood films over the years. I didn't realize that Yellow itself was a car maker. Yes, they were building cabs, Checker built cabs here in the US as well, they built those into the 1980s. Oh wow, that's, yeah, if you know which movie that has been in, then write it in the comments, it'd be fascinating to see. More bicycles, of course. What? Hang on. Well, that's not wood, surely. What on earth is a Lincoln Blackwood? Yes, one of the more unusual production cars in our collection. For a short period of time, around the turn of the 21st century, Lincoln produced pickup trucks based on the basic platform of the Ford F-150, but obviously far more refined and far more luxurious. So we should say that for viewers outside the US, Lincoln was and is Ford's sort of more premium, upmarket Mercedes fighting division. Exactly. Correct? Yes. So they thought, right, what people want is a leather lined, fake wood paneled, luxury pickup truck. Yes, and yeah, they just did not sell because, you know, if people were in the market for a pickup, they weren't thinking Lincoln and luxury necessarily. So it was an idea that probably looked good on paper, but not so well in reality. Yeah, if you want a Lincoln, you don't want a truck. And if you want a truck, you don't want a Lincoln. Just so. That's kind of funny though, because nowadays with this kind of, particularly in Europe, the push for more premium, upmarket cars, there is a lot of this sort of, you know, push for even utilitarian cars to have more spec and more toys and more equipment. Maybe Lincoln were just a little bit ahead of their time. Even Ford makes F-150s now that are just about as luxurious as this in terms of the convenience options. Ah, funny. Well, yeah, unusual exhibit. I like that. Let's have a look down here then. Right, Matt, I don't know much about American cars, certainly not as much as you, but I do think I'm safe in saying a Pontiac GTO is the original muscle car. That's where they began. Yeah, but this is a 1965 and it was one year earlier, 64 when Pontiac introduced the GTO, and it originally is an options package on the Tempest Le Mans. But the idea is pretty simple. Put as big an engine you can in a kind of a lightweight, medium-sized or intermediate American car and go have fun. And those became all the rage in the early 70s. So what sort of spec engine are you talking when you say, you know, give it more power and off you go? Yeah, 389 cubic inches in this and three two-barrel carburetors as well, four-speed transmission on the floor. Yeah. Great looking car. Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful. But it doesn't scream sportiness in terms of it still looks like a big, upright kind of family man's car, doesn't it? Yeah, kind of a sleeper, they would call it. Yeah, exactly. Sleeper, yeah, of course. Right, shall we head down more chrome? Let's just get into the chrome here. Yeah, we've got our Buick Roadmaster here, absolutely gorgeous car with the vented ports on the side, which come right out of World War II aviation themes, right? Those would have been ventilation ports on an airplane engine. Just like a fighter plane, like a Spitfire or Mustang. Exactly. So even today, those are still kind of a Buick hallmark. But that's the kind of thing you would have cruised on the open road in the 50s in the US. Yeah, this era for just having these toothy chrome bumpers and the lights, it just screams Americana, doesn't it? And again, here on the, what, we've got a Chrysler? Yeah, 1950 Chrysler New Yorker here, same kind of concept. Just a luxurious, comfortable marshmallow ride, as they used to call it, like you're floating down the highway. Moving on to a Chevy, getting in towards the finned era at the back, can we say slightly? Yeah, this car is interesting. This is actually a safety car. So if you're looking at it, it's got like some headrests in the back and restraints, some wider seats. So some concepts of things that could help people in the event of an accident. Yeah, long before airbags and auto collision braking. Yes, even before seatbelts were required in cars. This has got quite a poignant story, hasn't it? It does. This is a Ford Ranger pickup that was given by Ford Motor Company to the Port Authority of New York, New Jersey after September 11th, 2001. So this would have been involved in some of the recovery efforts after the 9-11 attacks. Oh, right, when they were kind of sending the cavalry to help with the clear up. Yeah. Interesting. And kind of a Lincoln Lane over here with a couple of Continentals, Model K. This Continental is very special. The car was designed by Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford, working together with a man named Bob Gregory, who essentially headed Ford's design studio at the time. And this was Edsel Ford's personal car. So he owned this and used this right up to the end of his life in May of 1943. I see. Now, when you say that this is a Lincoln, I get now why that Lincoln we saw earlier, the concept car, had the waterfall grille. Exactly. It comes right out of this, yep. There we go. I mean, this is a bit of a contrast of the American car industry, right? Two very different vehicles. Yes, this built in 1918. It's a Nash Quad. These were built under the Jeffrey name, the Nash name. It's a four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering vehicle that was used in France during World War I. Just very tough, very rugged, able to go anywhere. Doesn't look, again, particularly comfortable. Are these like solid tires? Solid rubber tires, yes. So not a comfortable ride. Ouch. Okay, things have moved on in the intervening century. What's happened to this poor old Ford GT? Yes, this is one of the second generation GTs built circa 2004 to 2005. And this one was a fully functioning operating car that was cut into and kind of dissected by Ford Motor Company for auto shows so people could see the engineering underneath the beautiful body. I mean, they didn't even just do one side. There's like the engine cover is missing over here and then we've got the interior exposed and then they even cut through the wheel and the brake. Yeah, right through the valve stem too, if you look on the tire. Oh, yeah. They did a beautiful job of it. And these cutaways are fun. They go back to the very beginning of the automotive age. People just love this kind of presentation. So, you know, some things that are old are still pretty fresh ideas. Yeah, I guess anyone who's interested in engineering as a kid likes to take their toys apart. I was never very good at putting them back together so they worked again. But yeah, this is like the grown-up version of that. Another Lincoln over here. This is a much earlier one from 1923. Ford Motor Company bought Lincoln in 1922 and this would have been one of the first cars built under Ford ownership. But this one's special. It was a gift from Henry Ford to his greatest friend and mentor, Thomas Edison. So Edison used this car in the last years of his life. So two giants of kind of American modern history. Absolutely. Directly connected to this automobile right here. Absolutely. That's fascinating. I'm sure the lights work brilliantly if Edison had it. Here we go. Here's something that a Brit can understand. A good old-fashioned petrol hot hatchback. Yeah, it's a 2009 Ford Focus Electric. This is one of two cars that were... Electric car, believe it or not. Yeah, this is a two and a half litre Volvo engine. The electric Focus in here. What? And this was actually used by Jay Leno, the American television presenter, for his 10 o'clock show here in the US. He had a segment, not unlike Top Gear, with the stars in a reasonably priced car where they would set their best time on a track. Oh, I did not know that I sort of thought Ford got into the electric game with things like the Mustang Mach-E. But it turns out they've been doing it a while. Interesting. Got a Rolls-Royce here on the end, which belonged to J.P. Morgan Jr., who was the son of the famous American financier. And even though it's a Rolls, it was built in Springfield, Massachusetts. Rolls had a plant here for a few years. And even though it was built in America, J.P. Morgan Jr. insisted that it be right-hand drive, so it looked like a proper British car. That was important for the prestige, was it? And this is the kind of car you could wear your top hat in. You see how tall the roof is. The whole car itself feels about one and a half times life size. That makes a Cullinan, the new SUV, look a little bit dwarfed. Police car? Yeah. What's special? It's a 2011 Ford Crown Victoria, which for years and years, those were the police car here in the United States. And we thought it was important to collect one of these, first of all, just because of the impact that the automobile had on policing. Police officers today spend a lot of time on traffic enforcement. But also, there have been some very serious issues here in the United States with policing against communities of color. It's caused some serious issues and provoked some important discussion in the United States. So this allows us to get at those stories. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny. If you've watched any kind of American TV show or movie, and you close your eyes and think of a police car in a chase, it will be one of these. Now they're all in SUVs. It somehow doesn't look right. They haven't got the kind of body roll and tire squeal that a Crown Vic had. And I have to say this, that looks so heavy duty. You can tell that you guys like a police pursuit. Yeah, the bull bar on the front. Yes, for those T-boner pit maneuvers. Cute little hot rod. Yeah, the 1932 Ford, which is like the quintessential hot rod in the United States. This one actually has a Chrysler engine in it. Oh, is that blasphemy to have a Ford with a Chrysler engine in it? That's the beauty of the hot rod hobby, right? You do things that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Okay, and I just want to come down here because in the main museum, you've got the JFK presidential limousine. But it looks like its clone is here. What's going on? Yeah, so this is another mid-60s Lincoln Continental. This is a 1964. This car was built for Pope Paul VI when he came to visit the United States in 1965. Specifically for one papal visit, they did an entire limousine. Exactly, and interestingly, after the Pope had used it, it was sold to the city of Chicago and they used it as their municipal parade car. So they had a number of Apollo astronauts, for example. So people like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin rode in this car in ticker tape parades. Oh, and they celebrated coming back. Now I have to say, so this would have been after the JFK assassination that the Pope visited. Yes. And yet there's a giant hole cut in the roof so presumably the Pope could stand up and wave to the crowd. Exactly. Had they not learned their lesson? You would have thought, having had the president assassinated so recently. But no, we just don't think of those things until they happen. And unfortunately, it did happen with Pope John Paul II some years later. It does look curiously like there's a bullet hole in the windshield up here as well. Yeah, I think there was just a bolt that went through there and probably a quick cut in it. Okay, but yeah, nice to see a Lincoln that perhaps isn't grounded in infamy. Yeah. Like the presidential car. Beautiful car is really, really special for the era. Absolutely. There's history everywhere in here, isn't there? Yeah. What about this? This is a particularly special car. From the mid-19-teens into the early 1920s, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone of the Firestone Tire Company used to take annual camping trips and they weren't exactly roughing it. They were glamping, right? They had all the luxuries with them. This is one of the convoy of cars that would go with them on these trips. This one carried food and equipment for cooking, but it is a 1922 Lincoln chassis with a truck body on the back. So this is, again, it's like a kind of early crossover SUV station wagon sort of out, like an overlanding car, which is kind of popular now. But yeah, if cars could talk, Ford, Edison and Firestone all hanging out, you know, roasting s'mores next to this thing. Imagine the conversations this had. That must have been incredible. Now we've looped back up here because I think this is quite an interesting car to end on, given we are at the Henry Ford Museum. Tell us about this Ford, Matt. Yeah, this is an important vehicle. It's a 1942 Ford sedan and this was the last car owned by Henry Ford. And in fact, on the last day of his life, April 7, 1947, he rode in this car. There'd been some heavy rain and flooding here in the Dearborn area. He wanted to kind of make a tour of his properties, make sure everything was all right and spent quite a bit of time in the backseat of this vehicle with his driver. And that night he returned to his home fair lane and went to bed a little early, got up about 11.30, complaining of a headache. And within just a few moments after that, passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage. Goodness me. So he wasn't like known to be ill at the time. It was kind of a shock. And what did that do to the Ford Motor Company? It was a tough time for the Ford Motor Company. In fact, Edsel Ford had been president of Ford, Henry's son. He died rather unexpectedly in 1943. So Henry I came back to run the company. And by that time, frankly, he was slowing down in terms of his physical health, his mental health for that matter. So it was Edsel's oldest son, Henry Ford II, who was released from his service in the Navy to come back and run Ford Motor Company. So by the time Henry passed away, Henry II was already running the company. But still, you can imagine, not just at Ford Motor Company, but throughout Detroit, the state of Michigan, and really the US, people were mourning the sudden passage of Henry Ford and what it represented. He was really one of the last founders of the American automobile industry at that point. So this is, in of itself, it's just a pretty normal car. But it has this phenomenal story to it. How do you decide what lives in the main museum and what's kind of here hidden in the shadows? Yeah, that's one of the toughest parts about this job. Everything we have in the collection is worthy, quote unquote, of being in the museum. It's all great stuff. But a lot of it basically just comes down to space. There's only so much room in the museum with all of those exhibits we have going on. You have to figure out which cars will fit in which particular area. And you also want to think about what kind of story you're trying to tell through your exhibit, too. And some cars speak better to other stories. Sure. Well, I've loved hearing your stories. It's been fascinating to have a look all around here and see things that the public would never normally get to see. So I want to say, on behalf of Top Gear, everyone, thank you very much, Matt, for showing us around. Glad to do so. Thank you. And if you enjoyed this tour of the Henry Ford Museum's secret stash bunker, stick around for our next film, where Matt and I take a look at the incredible cars that made the cut to be on display inside one of the world's greatest museums.