General Motors’ Milford Proving Ground has been in use for over 100 years as a place to test its new cars as well as the technology that they contain. The original 1,125-acre site was purchased by GM in 1923 for slightly more than $100,000. When Milford opened, it had 5 1/2 miles of roads for testing and two buildings on it, with 267 feet of elevation change built in. Since then, the Milford Proving Ground has become the oldest facility dedicated to vehicle testing in the entire world, one of the interesting facts every car enthusiast should know about General Motors.

Today, the Milford Proving Ground spans more than 4,000 acres, with 150 buildings located on the grounds. Milford is located west of Detroit and takes around 45 minutes to drive there from the Motor City. The road inventory at Milford includes 131 miles of paved roadways as well as 16 miles of gravel roads. At last count, a total of 15 million miles have been racked up each year during vehicle testing and development at Milford.

The 131 miles of paved areas and roads within the Milford Proving Ground are highlighted by a 67-acre test area known as “black lake,” so-called for the waterfowl that attempt to land on it thinking it’s a body of water. There’s an oval track nearly 4 miles in length, a straight section without a speed limit, a circular track with banking that’s 4 1/2 miles around, and the Milford Road Course that simulates part of the famous Nurburgring track in Germany.

A great many automotive advances have been developed at the General Motors Milford Proving Ground. Some of these are vehicle rollover testing in 1934, the first guardrails for roadways, the first automatic transmission to be mass-produced in the 1930s, the first autonomous car concept in 1939, child safety seats in 1969, crash test dummies that have a horrifying history in 1971, catalytic converters to reduce emissions in the 1970s. Not to mention, the Rear Seat Reminder feature in 2017, and Super Cruise in 2018.

In addition to testing GM vehicles on the roads of Milford, a great deal of vehicle testing takes place inside the numerous buildings on the Milford campus. Some of these buildings are used for testing GM cars in extreme conditions such as altitudes as high as 12,500 feet and as low as 700 feet below sea level, temperatures as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit and as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, wind speeds ranging between 0 mph and 100 mph, and humidity as high as 90% and as low as 10%.

Other buildings are used for crash testing GM cars, with the Milford crash lab being supported with 70 tons of reinforced concrete to stabilize its structure. There are also buildings on the Milford Proving Ground site that fulfill community-based functions. Milford has its own medical resources that operate 24/7/365, plus EMS and Fire personnel, a wastewater treatment plant, and an electrical distribution facility located on the premises.

One of the most famous vehicles that has been developed and tested at the General Motors Milford Proving Ground is the Lunar Roving Vehicle, or Lunar Rover, that traveled to the Moon for the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 spaceflights. The Lunar Rover enabled the Apollo astronauts to cover a lot more ground, collect more samples, and get a lot more done than if they had been limited to walking on the Moon’s surface. The Lunar Rover weighed a total of 450 pounds on Earth, equal to 75 pounds in the Moon’s reduced gravity, but it could carry a maximum of 1,000 pounds — double its weight on Earth. The performance requirements for the Lunar Rover included making it through 28-inch craters and climbing obstacles as high as 12 inches.

The astronauts rode in what looked like webbed aluminum lawn chairs, with Velcro strips attached to the seats and their life support packs to hold them in securely. Fenders on the woven wire mesh wheels were designed to minimize any dust that would be thrown up as the Rover did its work exploring the lunar surface. The Lunar Rover was an EV, energized by two 36-volt batteries made of silver and zinc that powered four 1/4-horsepower motors, one at each wheel, making a transmission unnecessary. Bringing this story up to date, GM is getting back into the space race by developing a next-generation Lunar Lander for the upcoming manned NASA Artemis missions.