Ford's Proving Ground at Yucca

Mohave County still has some bronco busters at work. In this case, the home range is Ford's Arizona Proving Ground, twenty-five miles southwest of Kingman at Yucca. The 170 workers at this busy facility are proud of the fact that the new Ford Bronco utility vehicle received its final development and testing here in the Arizona desert. It seems appropriate that a car of this type, so much at home on the range, should call Yucca its birthplace, rather than some snow-covered farmland area back in Michigan. The thirty-two miles of test roads in this 3,840-acre spread is humming with activity these days.

Ford Motor Company's automotive test program in Mohave County is as big as all outdoors. Although centered in the Ford Arizona Proving Ground, a 3,840-acre spread of test roads and laboratories, much of the company's environmental test work is done on public roads. “We get double duty out of this proving ground,” said Chuck Barbour, test track manager. “Not only do we have an inside-outside operation, but we also do two types of testing desert environmental and all-purpose durability tests.” Ford selected the site of a World War II airfield twenty-five miles southwest of Kingman on U.S. 66 for its southwestern testing facility. Construction on it was completed in 1955. Now two million test miles a year are driven there. The track has more than thirty-two miles of test roads, many of them designed for special types of torture for car and truck bodies and their components, such as shock absorbers. Several modern laboratories supplement track operations.

“Our evaluation program here covers a wide range,” Mr. Barbour said. “The environment is excellent for air conditioner testing, for example, and we also measure engine and carburetor emission levels in the hot, dry atmosphere. As a total departure, we also run a con-tinuing anti-corrosion program, using salt baths to simulate the salted roads of a mid-western winter.” The key to automotive testing is the acceleration of wear. Therefore, engineers at the Arizona Proving Ground test new cars and trucks over roads that are rougher, turn more sharply and have steeper grades than most Arizona motorists are ever likely to encounter. By intensifying the wear and running test vehicles as much as twenty-four hours a day, Ford's technicians are able to compress into weeks what would take months to achieve in highway testing or even years in typical customer usage. Some of the means for achieving that wear are the use of dust roads for accelerated testing of filters and sealers, a high-speed banked oval track, five miles long, for overall evaluation and measurement of torque in driveshafts.

Ford operates other major proving grounds at Dearborn and Romeo, Michigan, and environmental test stations at Bemidji, Minnesota, and Pikes Peak, Colorado. But the 170 engineers, technicians and mechanics at the Mohave County testing layout have additional roads and terrain at their disposal that make the facility uniquely suitable. The fact is, much testing is carried on outside the two by three-mile environs of the proving ground. Not only is the climate in the area good enough for year-round operations, but an excellent county road system permits off-track testing on mountain grades that stretch as long as twelve miles and on twisting roads that offer elevation changes of up to 5,000 feet.

Mountain driving is ideal for evaluating cooling systems, engines, transmissions and brakes. The Ford test drivers also take advantage of the good roads in the area to evaluate cars under actual highway conditions. It was largely because of Mohave County's motoring environment that Ford selected its Arizona Proving Ground as the birthplace for the four-wheel-drive Bronco. The Bronco, a small utility vehicle, was proven out on the county's rocky hillsides and in its sandy dry washes as well as on paved roads and the test track. The famed Twin-I-Beam front suspension used on Ford light trucks also had its final development on the rocks, sand and pavement of Mohave County.

JULY

This is the time for the pines And for the lakes, For the big cliffs and the waterfall That breaks and drops and calls A mountain song. Trout move Like shadows in the cold bright stream. Evenings are quiet, and the light lasts long After the sunset rings its glorious gong. Now pines have turned to shapes and shapes to mass And soon A new light breaks beneath The great white moon. -Sylvia Lewis Kinney