WHY WE CARRY THIS NAME
Willow Run proved what happens when the stakes get high enough.
The skeptics said mass production was impossible. Sorensen built it anyway. One bomber every 63 minutes.
We think that dynamic is back. After 40 years of offshoring, America is rebuilding its industrial base.
The policy support is real. The capital is flowing. The companies doing the building are mostly small, mostly ignored, and mostly mispriced.
That’s where we invest.
OUR HERITAGE
THE ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY
The story behind Willow Run Capital
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Standing over the papers, I roughed out on Coronado Hotel notepaper a pencil sketch of the floor plan of a bomber plant. It would be a mile long and a quarter mile wide, the biggest single industrial building ever. I still have that sketch, initialed by Edsel Ford.
— CHARLES SORENSEN, VP OF PRODUCTION, FORD MOTOR COMPANY, 1941
WILLOW RUN BOMBER PLANT — SPECIFICATIONS
3.5M
1 MILE
63 MIN
8,685
THE WILLOW RUN STORY
In 1941, when the world was at war, skeptics said mass-producing aircraft was impossible.
“You can’t expect a blacksmith to make a watch overnight,” scoffed one aviation executive. Ford Motor Company proved them wrong.
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1940
The Challenge
President Roosevelt calls for 50,000 combat aircraft. The B-24 Liberator is the bomber of choice, but Consolidated Aircraft in San Diego can only produce them by hand — slowly and expensively. The government turns to Detroit.
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1941
The Vision
Charles Sorensen, Ford’s VP of Production, sketches the floor plan on hotel notepaper. His vision: apply automobile assembly line techniques to aircraft manufacturing. Construction begins on 975 acres of Henry Ford’s farmland near Ypsilanti, Michigan.
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1942
The Struggle
Critics call it “Will It Run?” as the plant struggles with constant design changes and workforce challenges. Only 56 aircraft are built in the entire year. Senator Truman visits to investigate. Ford perseveres.
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1943
The Breakthrough
A single plant manager is given authority to make decisions. Women join the workforce in droves — 12,000 at peak, earning equal pay. The “Rosie the Riveter” icon emerges. Production stabilizes and accelerates.
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1944
The Triumph
Willow Run achieves the impossible: one B-24 Liberator every 63 minutes, 24 hours a day. In April alone, 428 bombers roll off the line. The plant produces half of all B-24s built that year — 70% of total production by 1945.
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1945
The Legacy
Production ends in June with 8,685 aircraft completed. Willow Run becomes the symbol of American manufacturing might — proof that industrial capacity, properly harnessed, can achieve what others think impossible.