Item Info

Media Type: Photographic Prints
Source: Automobile Reference Collection
Notes:

The Model T Ford, heroine of a thousand journeys, butt of uncounted jokes and the most famous automobile ever built, first chugged into history on October 1, 1908.

Nineteen years and 15,000,000 cars later, manufacturing was final halted for introduction of the Model A.

The Model T won the affection of millions of Americans, became the symbol of low-cost, reliable transportation, and catapulted her manufacturer, Henry Ford, into the position of the world’s best known industrialist.

In producing the Model T, the aim of Henry Ford had been to develop the “universal car”. Its essence was simplicity. Mass production made it possible.

Mr. Ford admitted the Model T was not the best automobile that, at that time, he knew how to design. He simply said the roads of 1908 were bad. He was going to build a car that could run through anything.

He did.

He also said that it had to be simple in operation, easily repaired, sold at a low price and be durable.

The first year’s production of Model T’s reached 10,660, breaking all records for the industry. A total of 15,456,868 were made by the Ford Motor Company.  The highest daily production in the history of the company was reached on October 31, 1925, when 9,109 Model T’s were built.

At one time the Model T sold for $290 – without extras. But it was the extras that kept her in loving memory. Dashing items like rubber hood silencers, tool chests, tire-patching outfit, clamp-on dash lights, and flower vase were an important part of ownership.

Operation of the Model T was simple. The transmission was of the planetary type, the same principle used in modern-day automatic transmissions, control was by three foot-pedals, clutch, reverse and brake. Its heady acceleration, the fastest on the road, was obtained by pulling the hand throttle down hard and shoving the left foot against the low-speed pedal.

The Model T was without frills. Gas levels was measured with a stick, the absence of bumpers made for amiable fenders and its roar down a country road at a 45-mile-an-hour top speed was a delight to the automotive-minded.

The production records of the Model T were made possible through perfection of methods of mass-production during early Model T manufacturing.

The principle of the moving assembly line for the Model T was adapted from a smaller line which assembled magnetos. A chassis was dragged by rope and windlass along the floor of the Highland Park, Mich., plant in the summer of 1913 to test the theory. Modern mass-production had been born. By 1914 completed chassis were popping out of the door of the plant every 40 seconds.

The Model T was the first car to use vanadium steel, first to have its motor block cast as a single unit, popularized the steering wheel on the left-hand side and was first to have a removable cylinder head for easy access to pistons and cylinders.

The last Model T was built on May 26, 1927. Each style of the Model T is now housed in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. They are seen by thousands of visitors each year.

It is estimated there are 100,000 Model T’s still on the roads of the world and still running. Model T motors can be found running power saws in backwood areas, attached to home-made farm churns and milking machines or powering generators in small shops.

Wherever found, the Model T is regarded with the respect, amusement or affection due the nostalgic memories of when America first took to wheels on back country roads or newly paved highways.

Creator Name: Ford News Department, Dearborn, Mich.