You may have seen a photo floating around the Internet that depicts a gaggle of Mavericks—not the pickup, but the econo-coupe that preceded it—lurking in what appears to be some type of natural cave. Dig a little deeper, and you might even stumble across a sentence or two explaining that these unlikely spelunkers represent overstock stuffed by Ford into a subterranean system carved deep beneath the bedrock of Missouri.
The image might seem an oddball anachronism, some kind of temporary solution to overflowing dealer lots that somehow made sense in the 1970s. Would it surprise you to find out that Ford is actually entering its seventh decade of keeping cars in said caves, which are part of a vast business complex called SubTropolis?
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Although Hunt Midwest works with other automotive partners at SubTropolis, Ford is truly the anchor tenant. With its Kansas City plant still building the F-150 pickup (as it has since 1957), and another nearby Missouri facility churning out the Transit van, the company's underground presence has grown alongside both of those product lines.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ls671 on Saturday November 09 2024, @06:35AM (1 child)
I suspect those cars are just decoys to hide the batmobile. This is obviously batman's batcave.
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 09 2024, @10:14AM
> ...batman's batcave
Nice try, but Missouri != Gotham City.
Oddly enough, I recently saw one of the TV show Batmobiles, at this nice hot rod museum,
https://lionsautomobilia.org/american-muscle/ [lionsautomobilia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday November 09 2024, @01:46PM (2 children)
It's not really clear to me but is the cave somewhat of a temporary storage thing? They produce more cars then they need right now or can logistically ship out so they temporarily store it in the environmentally controlled cavern? Or did I miss something?
That still doesn't explain why there now are apparently very old cars down there. It's not like FORD is keeping them there to try and make bank on the antique market. Is there some kind of weird copyright design reasons? Are they renting them out to movies and TV productions? Did they sort of just forget they had them down there for a few decades and then not know what to do with them?
(Score: 3, Funny) by ls671 on Saturday November 09 2024, @02:24PM (1 child)
It's just the American version of this other cave:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault [wikipedia.org]
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 3, Funny) by hendrikboom on Saturday November 09 2024, @07:47PM
Those old cars can be used as seeds for rescuing the species if ever necessary.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 09 2024, @10:22PM
The thing about a place like SubTropolis is that it's relatively low tech, low maintenance, low cost, and useful for all sorts of low profile, low intensity things like massive long term warehouse space.
Kind of wild that it has been used more or less the same way since before I was born, but fits with the overall "we just want time to stand still" vibe of the place.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]