Thread: Some Cool History

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This one popped up on the Rat Rods & Hot Rods, KC Heartland page. Can you imagine if they'd just forgotten about them, or "lost" one or two in the caves....
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Mavericks.jpg
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In the early 1970s, Ford Motor Company was producing the Maverick, a compact car marketed as an affordable and efficient vehicle. However, the demand for the Maverick was not as high as Ford had anticipated, and they found themselves with a surplus of unsold cars.
To deal with this surplus, Ford decided to store thousands of unsold Mavericks in the Subtropolis caves located in Kansas City, Missouri. Subtropolis is a man-made underground complex of limestone mines, covering over 55 million square feet, and is home to many businesses that use the caves for storage and other purposes.
Ford leased about 25 acres of the cave complex, which was ideal for storing the cars as the caves are naturally climate-controlled with temperatures ranging between 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit year-round. The cars were kept in the caves until they could be sold, which reportedly took several years.
The storage of the Mavericks in the Subtropolis caves became somewhat of a legend in the automotive world, with many car enthusiasts and historians fascinated by the idea of thousands of unsold cars sitting underground for years. Today, the Subtropolis complex is still in use, and while the Mavericks are no longer stored there, the story of their time underground remains a unique piece of automotive history.
SubTropolis - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubTropolis
Written by David Snyder

I have a double connection to this story, over the years I owned a couple Mavericks from that era, and in my truckin' days I delivered to companies in the caves! Maneuvering a semi tractor and trailer in and out of the caves was a "unique" experience!

I've only visited the caves two, maybe three times and just driving a F150 I hoped not to meet another vehicle! I can only imagine a semi rig in those spaces! It's a surprise to pull off of I35 and head up the hill to the west looking for the address, turn off to a gate and then around a bend to a hole in the hill! Really kind of eerie....

It's on my places to check out list!