A former Amazon warehouse in Romulus is now home to one of Ford's most prized possessions: 125 vehicles spanning more than a century of the automaker's history, tucked inside a facility the public still cannot walk into. The building, known as the Ford Vault, sits at 11457 Hannan Road and represents the culmination of a multi-year effort to gather the company's scattered heritage fleet under one roof.
“We have 125 vehicles here at the Ford Vault,” said Ford archives and heritage brand manager Ted Ryan, according to MLive, which got a first look inside the newly constructed 79,000-square-foot building this week. As Metro Detroit News reported, the Vault houses the Ford U.S. Heritage Fleet, a sprawling assortment of cars, trucks and experimental models meant to document Ford's engineering and cultural footprint since the company's founding.
For now, the doors are mostly locked to outsiders. Due to zoning laws, the building is only open to employees and offers limited opportunities for media, according to Car and Driver. Ford has said the Vault will eventually open to the public and serve as a Ford event space, per the same MLive report, though no firm date has been set.
What's Actually Parked Inside
The collection ranges from the earliest days of mass production to Hollywood and racing fame. Among the highlights is a 1911 right-hand-drive Model T built in the United Kingdom, according to MLive's report. The Vault also holds the final Mustang produced at the Dearborn Assembly Plant in 2004, marking the end of an era for the nameplate's longtime home.
Motorsport history gets its own spotlight too. The Vault includes Ford GT40 race cars tied to the historic 1-2-3 podium sweep at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, per MLive's account, though Car and Driver's report characterized the GT40s as visiting the facility temporarily rather than being permanently housed there. Concept-car fans will find the 2003 Model U, which Car and Driver described as a modern take on the Model T's “people's car” approach.
From Scattered Storage to a Single Address
The push to centralize Ford's heritage vehicles dates back to 2024, when the company began curating its Heritage Fleet in earnest, according to Car and Driver's reporting. Before that reorganization, Ford's heritage vehicles were scattered across the globe, lacking a centralized structure, according to a Ford-published account on Ford's own site. The company says it selected vehicles for the collection based on criteria including “Ford First” innovations, cultural significance, long-running nameplates, regional significance and racing heritage.
That consolidation effort followed years of Ford showing off pieces of its history in smaller doses. In 2025, Ford showcased more than 50 vehicles from its Heritage Fleet of nearly 500 at a display for employees at its Dearborn headquarters, the Ford article noted. Separately, USA Today reported that Ford's Dearborn collection held 175 vehicles on its own, while the broader heritage fleet numbered roughly 500. Before the Vault's debut, that fleet was not open to the public, though Ford would occasionally bring select cars to public events, per USA Today's report.
Not Quite a Museum, At Least Not Yet
Ford has been careful about how it frames the collection's purpose. “It's not a museum. The Henry Ford's around the corner if you want to go see a big lineup of historic vehicles. This is a living and breathing fleet,” the company told USA Today in describing the Heritage Fleet's earlier incarnation. Ford is now working with Romulus toward bringing the building up to code for a potential public opening, Car and Driver reported, though the company didn't provide a timeline for when the collection would open up to the public.
A limited glimpse may be coming soon regardless of the broader access question. Ford Heritage Fleet brand manager Matt Korczyk announced an Open House tied to the Vault for November 14, writing that registration details were available through his social media bio, according to Ford Authority. Until wider access materializes, the Vault remains largely a working archive for Ford's own designers and engineers, who can study the vehicles together to inform future designs, according to Metro Detroit News's report on the facility.
