Why is the Motor-City in Detroit

[Hermod]

First and foremost, we got lucky that Henry Ford was born in Michigan. And because Detroit was already an industrial center and the state of Michigan had a great supply of natural resources, Ford himself had no reason to move - he could easily build his cars here.

Secondly, as Ford Motor Co. grew and grew, suppliers built up around the company, which later made it efficient for other car companies to start up or continue operations in or close to Detroit. After all, why wouldn't you want to be close to your suppliers and a workforce that is already trained?

Cities/areas like Milwaukee and Cincinnati did try to get in on the automobile frenzy, but we're simply unable to compete with the efficiency of Detroit once Ford got big. I find Crosley Motors [[not to be confused with British Crossley Motors, although it IS easy to confuse the two) in Cincinnati to be particularly fascinating. In the '40s they had a powerful engine that could be put in a station wagon and still achieve roughly 45 MPG. Today, you'd think that was impossible.

The engine in the late-40s Crosley's were not that powerful. It was put-put-put down the streets of the urb. Think early-VW Beetles.

[nain rouge]

And I'll have you know, for example, that Crosley Motors drove one of their station wagons for over 100 days straight/50,000+ miles in 1949, and according to the company, it performed admirably.