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After a quarter-century hiatus, public tours begin again today (May 3) at the historic Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn.

In effect, the factory has been turned into a museum - or is it a bit of Disneyland North?

The Rouge tour is THE outstanding tour of any industrial facility in the world and, while no longer free as it was for some 50 years, still it's well worth a special trip to Michigan.

There's no more famous industrial plant, either. I don't know of any other manufacturing complex or plant, for instance, that has been so memorialized in art: Diego Rivera's murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) and treasured Charles Sheeler art photographs.

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At two times in its history - 1929 as Model A production was ramping up just before the Crash and during World War II when it was a cornerstone of the Arsenal of Democracy - Rouge employment exceeded 100,000 workers.

During the Depression, the Rouge was targeted by Communist-inspired marchers and later by organizers for the overwhelmingly non-Communist United Auto Workers. The latter resulted in the infamous 1937 Battle of the Overpass, when Harry Bennett goons attacked - right in front of news photographers - Walter Reuther and other union organizers handing out leaflets.

After losing a court fight and experiencing a bitter strike, Ford caved in to the UAW in 1941. Today, union and company battle their common import and transplant enemies by working jointly to improve quality and productivity. The overpass between the plant and worker parking lots has been rebuilt and now sports an historical plaque marking the event.

In our 2002 book, Ford Dynasty: A Photographic History, Jim Wagner and I devoted an entire chapter to the Rouge plant.

Tours past

For decades, except for war years, people came from around the world to tour the Rouge, and from all over the U.S. to watch their own car being built to order so they could drive it home.

It "yoostabee" that these tours began nearby at the equally famous Ford Rotunda, a gear-shaped exhibition building designed for the 1933-34 Chicago Century of Progress World's Fair and moved to Dearborn afterwards.

Indeed, a Rouge tour starting at the Rotunda was my professional introduction to Detroit and the auto industry when I arrived in the Motor City in 1957 for a job in the Business Week Detroit Bureau. My boss said, "I want you to go take the Rouge tour so you'll understand what this business is all about."

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When Ford discontinued tours in a cost-cutting move about 25 years ago, suddenly there no longer was any place for Motor City visitors actually to see new cars being built. Tours of other plants, like the Plymouth Lynch Road or Cadillac plants in Detroit, had also been chopped off by cost concerns and legal fears. (Chevrolet's Corvette plant in Kentucky now offers plant tours.)

In the old days, Ford tourists were bussed to and from the Rouge plant, which encompassed - in one huge 2000-acre complex - a progression from raw materials to cars driven off the assembly line.

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Parts of the tour were like a window on Dante's Inferno: molten steel being poured, bars of orange-hot steel being pounded down and squeezed into strips in the rolling mill, coils being sliced and hammered into body parts in the stamping plant. It was dramatic and, at the same time, scary.

The miracle was watching all these parts come together at final assembly. It was a crowd-pleaser, it was free, and it was a great sales and PR boon for Ford.

New and sanitized

Today a sanitized assembly plant visit is the only close-up part remaining for the new Rouge tours. But it's of the spanking new Rouge Truck Plant, where 2005 F-150s come off the line. From an environmental viewpoint, this is undoubtedly the "greenest" plant in the world. Among many other ecological concessions, the roof is sodded and vines will climb the sides, providing savings in heating and air conditioning as well as natural beauty and conservation.

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After that, they'll elevate to a glassed-in roof level that overviews the surrounding Rouge complex. Then it's back down to an enclosed one-third-mile-long balcony above the final assembly line for the world's best-selling vehicle, the F-Series truck. Tour guides are backed up by numerous explanatory signs and kiosks.

Finally, visitors will exit past a mini-museum of Rouge car products: the millionth Ford, a Model A 20; a 1932 V-8; a '49 coupe; a '56 Thunderbird; a '65 Mustang; and - of course - an '05 Ford F-150.

The old Dearborn Assembly Plant, dating back to assembly-line production of U.S. Navy submarine chasers in World War I, will be retired when the last 2004 Mustang comes off the line May 10.

The new tours actually will be operated from, and by, "The Henry Ford," as the former Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village now calls itself. Ironically, the new Rouge tours will constitute the closest relationship between the Ford company and the Museum since Old Henry died in 1947. Today, the museum and village are Michigan's leading tourist attractions, but have no other formal connection with the company.

As it was in the olden days, tourists will be bussed to and from the Rouge. Tour prices range from $8.50 to $14, and places must be reserved (313-982-6001 or www.TheHenryFord.org) in advance, much like, say, the Hearst Castle at San Simeon in California. This is still a bargain.

I'd recommend for anyone visiting the Rouge also to take a sidetrip to the DIA in Detroit's cultural center to see the Rivera murals. It will help put today's Rouge in perspective. Besides, it's an unheralded, world-class art museum.