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Since the '60s, Ford has stored cars underground in a Kansas City cave
- CyberDildonics 2y agoThis is normal storage space, anyone can rent it out.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoI've driven into some the caves a number of times. Pretty wild. Here's a video of "Subtropolis": https://youtu.be/3DJ4VjIRM24 https://youtu.be/3DJ4VjIRM24
- refurb 2y agoThat's wild how long he continues to drive underground! It's massive.
- markrages 2y agoIn the 90s I worked for a company in Kansas City designing pagers. We rented space underground for RF testing. There are no radio signals in the caves, at least back then. I'm sure that's different now, especially with manufacturing happening there. (Our cave was closer to downtown and was mostly used for warehousing.)
- hinkley 2y agoIn fact the article says there are a dozen companies that make custom Fords that occupy some of the space. Zero delivery time I guess.
- dietr1ch 2y agoAs for normal I beg to differ, but yeah ofc anyone can rent it.
- pimlottc 2y agoThere’s a similar facility called Iron Mountain in Boyers, PA that stores, among other things, millions of government records: https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/01/inside-iron-mountain.html https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/01/inside-iron-mountain.h...
- wlesieutre 2y agoAlso in PA, Wampum Underground where you can store your boat, RV, or other vehicles in their cave for the off season https://wampumunderground.com/vehicle-storage/ https://wampumunderground.com/vehicle-storage/
- fnordpiglet 2y agoOnly 1.7m square foot though.
- neilv 2y ago> Resting in a former limestone mine, it’s one of the nation’s most secure data centers and storage facilities. Few people inside Pennsylvania and outside it know this place exists. That’s the way the owner, Iron Mountain, likes it. > “The reason people use this place is because we don’t talk about this place,” said Chris Miller, Iron Mountain’s infrastructure manager. The tone of that is unclear, while giving a tour to a journalist.
- rmellow 2y agoThe person giving the tour knows security by obscurity is weak for actual security, but strong for marketing.
- neilv 2y agoThat could be, although I'd guess obscurity in this case might reduce the likelihood of random mentally ill people minor threats, and also reduce the likelihood of being the chosen target of some more capable terrorist threat. (Even random mentally ill people are likely to have access to firearms, and maybe heavy vehicles.) Before cloud got big, I used to have a personal physical server colocated at a network facility, in a nondescript commercial building that you had to know was there, and turn off the main street to get to, with no signage I could see. (Also, biometrics scanners, when those weren't consumer things, and a waiting room that seemed to securely lock in visitors, in view of guards.) I'd previously heard of non-government buildings without signage, for security reasons, so I figured that was it. Rather than not wanting to spend the money on a sign that would make it easier for customers to physically find, increase brand awareness, or raise their prominence in the minds of local officials before whom they might occasionally have business. And, over time, you hear of other non-government unmarked buildings that are arguably "sensitive", for one reason or another. The ones that personally come to mind, historically that type has been threatened before (by, e.g., people angry at a company that they blame for automating away jobs, people who saw a movie involving blowing up records of bank loans and think that will work in real life, animal rights activists who want to free lab animals (and didn't see that other movie), eco-terrorists, people who are are mentally ill and found something conveniently located to fixate on). Maybe also no need to invite protestors?
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agotl;dr: There's an old limestone mine that rents out space. Ford is a major customer, they store old cars there. Pretty cool but doesn't need the mystery. I wouldn't mind visiting, although I'm not a big fan of Ford. Seeing an old Ford GT might be cool.
- potato3732842 2y agoThere's a ton of facilities like this for storage of various stuff in middle America. The limestone geology (there was once a sea between the Appalachian and Rockies) lend itself well to them. These facilities store all manner of things, almost everyone reading this has probably eaten cheese from one of them.
- teddyh 2y agoYou might be over-estimating the US-centricness of HN readership demographics.
- Retric 2y agoThe US exports a lot of cheese. $2.2B/year or ~5% of global trade.
- marcosdumay 2y agoI'd imagine that the entire international trade of cheese carries just a tiny part of the cheese consumed over the world.
- Retric 2y agoSure, but a lifetime is also a long time.
- marcosdumay 2y agoA very small part of a tiny part tends to overwhelm that duration. That is to say, most people probably never eat US-made cheese, and those that did mostly did so while physically on the US. Also, most of that exported cheese tends to go to the same few places. That happens to every kind of product.
- Retric 2y agoIf noting unusual ever happened then I might agree with you but unusual events like significant US food aid after disasters are going to significantly affect these numbers even if it’s just for a few meals after an earthquake or political subsidy such as in 1965-1966 where US cheese flooded India. Several other countries had similar events during the early days of the green revolution. Mad Cow disease is a more recent example where global supply chains shifted and suddenly people were eating a lot more imported products or products from different countries. Further, from restaurants, ingredients in packaged food, vacations, baby food, pot luck’s, to one off sampling of a MRE many people have done something once which completely changed the supply chain for their normal diet. PS: I’d agree it’s under 50% globally when including children, but for the HN audience specifically it’s probably over that.
- vintagedave 2y agoSite is giving a Cloudflare error: "We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error." Try https://archive.is/DU1Tt https://archive.is/DU1Tt
- ttepasse 2y agoIn Upper Michigan there is an underground laboratory by a military shower curtain supplier in an old salt mine. Ever since the congressional hearings on missing astronauts there are rumours that they are researching more than just shower curtains.
- dan353hehe 2y agoI remember seeing something about that a few years ago. Super strange they never were found. Cave Johnson probably still has them doing some important science underground somewhere.
- hnisoss 2y agoportal reference?
- wut42 2y agoYes: https://time.graphics/event/2394246 https://time.graphics/event/2394246
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- master_crab 2y agoIf only there were large underground caves filled with oil to gas up cars in other underground caves. /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_(United_States)?wprov=sfti1#Facilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_(U...
- zzzeek 2y ago[flagged]
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y agoProbably easier and more comfortable to move to Canada or Europe.
- zzzeek 2y agoOK dual citizenship lucky dude, enjoy
- walterbell 2y ago"Dutch American Friendship Treaty", https://www.americanbar.org/groups/international_law/resources/international-law-news/2024-winter/netherlands-residency-dutch-american-friendship-treaty/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/international_law/resourc...
- TulliusCicero 2y agoYou still need an independent income for that.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y agoYou know it's possible to gain citizenship in other countries, right? You may have to be inconvenienced a bit to leave the USA, but it's entirely possible to do it. You aren't a prisoner here, you're free to leave it all behind. I have no plans to leave, I quite enjoy the freedoms we have here.
- WalterBright 2y agoThe article didn't say why Ford is still storing the cars there.
- dredmorbius 2y ago“In Kansas, in the Midwest, you get rain, you get hail, you get winter, you get ice, you get everything. And I think [Ford] really wanted to store the vehicles that they were producing and assembling in the area that wouldn’t come into harm’s way,” said Tompkins. “And so what better location than under a large roof?” From TFA.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- WalterBright 2y agoYes, I read that. That's why they were put there. Why are they still there?
- simonw 2y agoBecause Ford now have a large number of factories and other facilities deliberately located near the caves so that they can keep on using them as storage for new vehicles that need to be stored before they are shipped to customers.
- WalterBright 2y agoWhat are those old 1970s Mavericks doing there? Waiting 50 years for a customer?
- simonw 2y agoI think that's an old photo. I didn't see anything in the article that suggested the 1970s Mavericks are still down there today. There are some people discussing that in the article comments, they think it's a clickbait headline photo combo.
- bastloing 2y agoI read the article and it seems they build and store new cars and trucks there. Doesn't seem particularly cost effective.
- defrost 2y agoLimestone tunnels are extensive and "paid for" when mined, now they still exist and are assets that can be rented for storage. Large blocks were cut and pulled for processing, typically there are access tunnels that are wider than a two line highway with clearance for moving van height trucks with many "bays* that are large mined voids larger than a basketball court or three. It's cheap storage given the security (controlled access) and the shade from sunlight and protection from rain, weather (hail), etc.
- mcmcmc 2y agoFun fact, there are also a bunch of data centers and colos in the caverns
- paulorlando 2y agoRe government cheese... "The story of “government cheese” started with Jimmy Carter’s campaign promise to support the price of milk (specifically, to support a $0.06/gallon price increase). Consider it a rare campaign promise that happened to be kept, though it wasn’t completely thought through. "Enforcing a higher price for something commonly either means restricting supply or increasing demand. In this case, supporting the price increase meant that the government had to buy milk en masse. What happens when you buy lots of milk? You discover that it does not keep well. That in turn led to the milk being converted into other forms that last longer: cheese, primarily. The other benefit of cheese being its greater density — producing one pound of cheese requires roughly 10 pounds of milk. "But then what to do with the cheese? At first, the government just stored the cheese, where it apparently filled most of the large-scale cold storage in the US. (Rough cost for one year of the milk price support program (1981): $2 billion paid to dairy farmers in price support and $120 million in storage.)" https://unintendedconsequenc.es/food-from-thought/ https://unintendedconsequenc.es/food-from-thought/
- chrisco255 2y agoIt actually dates back to World War 2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_cheese https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_cheese
- smolder 2y agoThanks for making this correction. It made me wonder about the rest, but the gist seems real.
- vallismortis 2y agoDo they have any 2003 Explorer Sport Tracs down there? Because they have the only 1L2Z-3551729-AAPTM parts remaining in existence that haven't been destroyed by sun damage. It would save me a lot of time on this project: https://sporttrac.org/threads/gen-1-roof-trim-reproduction.124613/ https://sporttrac.org/threads/gen-1-roof-trim-reproduction.1...
- accrual 2y agoCool project, thanks for sharing! I don't have a need for the parts but it's cool to see vehicles from that era working properly.
- smolder 2y agoAt some point in working on old cars you need definitely need to give up on oem parts and fabricate or buy reproduction things. There is an inflection point where it is less hassle. People tend to overvalue authenticity, I think, so for me the inflection point comes sooner than average. Having read your post... It seems like you have this problem tackled? What's left? Having the shape scanned opens up tons of possibilities.
- ajb 2y agoMisleading title: Ford has kept transient stock underground since the 60s. The article isn't about vehicles kept since the 60s.