It can be dizzying in the spin cycle as history happens around us, but a historical group that celebrates the automobile industry and Detroit's wartime efforts is giving a nod to contributions Michigan companies are making against a new opponent – coronavirus.

The Motor Cities National Heritage Area Partnership at motorcities.org chronicles the automobile and how it has shaped life in Michigan and beyond.

A section of its site, Arsenal of Democracy Resources, details the last time Detroit’s automakers, engineers and assembly workers saved the country – World War II.

In an update, the group points to projects such as GM's and Ford’s rapid switch from car parts to ventilators, respirators and face shields and other companies in the state making hand sanitizer. "Many have dubbed this new fight the 'Arsenal of Health,' " the website says.

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Reliving the last fight

Under government command and working on government contracts, the auto industry ceased production of civilian vehicles early in 1942 as Detroit became the driving force in what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called “The Arsenal of Democracy.”

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The site includes a map with a partial list of buildings in and around Detroit used for WWII production. It’s partial because a comprehensive map would look like one big check mark over the whole Detroit area. Virtually every manufacturing building and many that no longer stand were converted to military production, along with facilities as far away as the Upper Peninsula.

“The Arsenal of Democracy story is being revisited right now in 2020, as we are mobilizing again in a new role – the Arsenal of Health,” Motor Cities communication manager Bob Sadler said. “We plan to continue updating this page on our website with additional stories of how our automotive industry rallies to win this new unprecedented fight.”

Links to other moments in history

The site has links to exhibits at the Detroit Historical Museum, the Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run Airport and more.

The museums aren’t open, but you can read the story of Edsel Ford’s quest to create the biggest, best bomber plant the world had ever known in “The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War” by A.J. Baime, who wrote the book “Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory.”

Photos of the men and women working in factories – women's participation changed the American workplace forever – and of the boats, bullets, tanks, planes and other things they built fill “Images from the Arsenal of Democracy” by former Wayne State professor Charles Hyde and “Detroit's Wartime Industry: Arsenal of Democracy” by journalist Michael W.R. Davis.

Contact Mark Phelan at 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter.