Inside Ford's bizarre archive where it keeps its secret supercars

Ever wondered how much the bar tab was for Ford’s ’66 Le Mans victory party? Where secret supercar styling bucks go when they retire? Or how to preserve a century’s worth of irreplaceable motoring film archives? Then join Top Gear magazine’s Ollie Kew as we step inside the usually securely locked doors of the Ford Motor Company’s secret archives.

We’ve been thrown the keys to one of the most valuable rooms in the entire Ford operation, where archivists catalogue and preserve hand-written letters from Henry Ford himself, every piece of Ford merch and memorabilia you could imagine, and even designs for concept cars that never saw the light of day.

It’s also a stone’s throw from the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, USA so it’d be rude not to explore the museum floor to see what historic vehicles made the cut to be on display inside, from infamous presidential limousines to Henry Ford’s first car, and even the bus at the centre of the civil rights movement.