The Secret Experimental Room: Birthplace of the Model T

The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant Museum is housed in one of Henry Ford’s earliest factories in Detroit and it exhibits one of the finest collections of Model T’s in the world. The staff and a team of volunteers endeavored to reconstruct the legendary Secret Experimental Room on the third floor, where Ford and his team of engineers and machinists designed the first Model T.  But the museum needed to provide visitors with information and interpretation. Flutter & Wow helped by producing an interactive video and cool antique mash-up exhibit furniture to frame the Secret Experimental Room.

We produced a series of videos featuring historian Bob Casey discussing and demonstrating the design innovations of the Model T. The video is exhibited on a large display housed in a cabinet made of new and antique parts. Interactive features allow visitors to select the videos they watch.

For additional exhibit furniture in the gallery, Flutter & Wow created unique displays that combine period materials, parts and fabrication with contemporary technology and design. This brand of custom design is one of our firm’s specialties.

Flutter & Wow designed and built additional graphic displays for the exhibition. Each display is a custom design combining new and old elements. Two backlit LED-lit reader rails are suggestive of period drafting boards. The exhibition title graphic is built into an antique cheval mirror frame.

The Secret Experimental Room recreation is evocative for museum visitors because of its historical precision and thoughtful details. It serves as an interpretive anchor for the museum with help from Flutter & Wow’s interactive video and mash-up exhibit furniture.

Flutter & Wow worked with video production company, 7 Cylinders, to create the video.