Latest venture honors Ford’s past
Road names have historical significance
In another sign of the project’s progression, Ford Motor Co. announced the road names for its $5.6 billion Blueoval City joint venture with SK On in Haywood County.
Each of the road names has historical significance to Ford and will help thousands of future Blueoval City workers navigate the plant when it eventually begins production in a couple years.
The news comes as construction is ongoing for the future Electric Vehicle Center and Blueoval SK battery park at the 3,600-acre site in Stanton, about 40 miles northeast of Memphis.
Ford and SK On plan to invest $5.6 billion for Blueoval City to produce electric trucks and batteries at the 3,600-acre site. The project is expected to create about 5,800 jobs, and production is scheduled to begin in 2025.
Here is Ford’s reasoning behind all six Blueoval City road names.
American Way: This road name is a nod to 1 American Road, the address of Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.
Battery Park Drive: The road name is symbolic of Ford and SK’S partnership. Blueoval SK Battery Park is a $5.8 billion investment by the two companies to build two new Blueoval SK battery plants in Kentucky. Workers at the future plants will build batteries for future Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles.
Blueoval City Drive: Of course, Ford named one of the roads after the massive project. Blueoval City will produce a to-be-named all-new Ford electric truck and advanced batteries for future Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles.
Fairlane Street: Fair Lane has multiple connections to Ford founder Henry Ford. Fair Lane was the estate of Ford and his wife, Clara Ford, in Dearborn. The Fairlane nameplate was used for seven different generations of vehicles sold between the 1955 and 1970 model years in North America.
Piquette Drive: The Piquette Plant produced the first Ford Model T and is the oldest automotive plant open to the public. Ford’s first purpose-built factory was built in 1904 in Detroit and now operates as a historic museum.
Willow Run Street: The road is named after Ford’s Willow Run Bomber Plant in Michigan. The plant’s mile-long assembly churned out nearly 9,000 B-24 Liberators — one every hour, or half of all the B-24s built during the war. At peak production, Willow Run employed 42,000 workers, up to one-third of them pioneering women industrial workers.
Omer Yusuf covers the Ford project in Haywood County, Fedex, tourism and banking for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached via email Omer.yusuf@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter @Omerayusuf.