By TED RYAN

There is a particular kind of magic to Union Station. For more than a century, it has served as the front door to the nation’s capital, a place where presidents have arrived to be inaugurated, where soldiers have shipped off to war, and where ordinary Americans, by the millions, have stepped off a train and into the heart of their democracy.

This summer, at the peak of America’s 250th birthday celebrations, those travelers will be greeted by something extraordinary. From July 1 through July 14, Ford will host Driving America Forward: A Ford Experience at Union Station, a free public exhibit that gathers, under one roof, some of the most culturally significant vehicles and artifacts in the American story.

These are not merely cars and trucks. They are the machines that carried us to work and to war, to church on Sunday and to the moon itself. They built our towns.

For 123 years, Ford has done more than build automobiles.

In 1908, the Model T put America on wheels, the first car the working man could actually afford. Five years later, in a brick factory in Highland Park, Michigan, Ford engineers perfected the moving assembly line, and the modern world was never quite the same.

Then came the $5 wage, doubling the going rate overnight, on the radical notion that the men who built the cars ought to be able to drive one home. This decision helped spark the Great Migration, when more than six million Black Americans left the rural South in search of opportunity.

When the world went to war, those same factories answered the call. At Willow Run, an engineering marvel rose from the Michigan farmland: a mile-long assembly line that produced a B-24 Liberator bomber every 63 minutes. By war's end, Ford had built more than 277,000 jeeps and countless tanks for the Arsenal of Democracy. And when the soldiers came home, Ford tractors helped them coax a living from their own soil.

In April 1964, on the floor of the New York World's Fair, Ford unveiled a sleek coupe called the Mustang. It would become the most iconic American car of all time by most estimations.

Decades later, the F-Series pickup quietly became the workhorse of the republic. It’s now America's best-selling truck for 49 years running, and the vehicle of choice for the contractors, farmers, ranchers, and first responders who keep the country moving.

Driving America Forward will tell these stories, and many more, across seven narrative chapters:

• Birth of an American Dream — From a small Detroit factory to a global enterprise on six continents, the story of how Ford put the world on wheels.
   
• The Backbone of Work — A tribute to the contractors, farmers, utility crews, first responders, and fleet operators who power America's essential economy.
   
• Answering the Call — How Ford has shown up in moments of national need: in war, in disaster relief, in medical innovation, and even in the race to the moon.
   
• Shaping Pop Culture — The Ford in the movie, the song, the photograph — and yes, even in the Popemobile.
   
• 125 Years of Racing — A racing legacy older than the company itself, driven by an unrelenting desire to win.
   
• American Innovations — Breakthroughs born in unexpected places, from the factory floor to the laboratory bench.
   
• Building a Better World — The communities, partnerships, and people Ford has worked alongside to leave the world better than we found it.

The exhibit is built on a simple idea: that a country and a company can share a history, and that history is worth celebrating, not simply with nostalgia, but with the kind of clear-eyed pride that looks forward as well as back.

Admission is free. Bring the kids. Bring your father. Bring whoever taught you to drive.

For updates in the weeks ahead, follow @Ford and @HagertyDriversFoundation on social media.

Plan Your Visit

Driving America Forward: A Ford Experience at Union Station is open daily from July 1 through July 14, 2026, in the Main Hall of Union Station in Washington, D.C. Admission is free; no ticket is required. The exhibit is fully accessible and reachable by Metro Red Line, MARC, VRE, Amtrak, taxi, rideshare or personal vehicle.

Ted Ryan is chief historian at Ford