Ford with a "T"

The Model T Ford is probably the best known classic car. The influence this model has had on the car industry and on the place of the car in society was and still is enormous.

The path that Ford (both the man and the entrepreneur) followed is anything but ordinary. Henry Ford initially worked at Edison but in his spare time he built a vehicle that first saw the light of day in 1896.

A second model followed a few years later. He left Thomas Edisons company and joined the Detroit Automobile Co. In 1903 he founded the Ford Motor Company, naturally in Detroit, the city where he lived. Fords beginnings were difficult because at that time the legal battle over the so called Selden patent was being fought, which in effect held the American automobile industry hostage. Selden claimed to have invented the car and had also patented it. In short, everyone who built a car in America had to pay a so called fee to Selden. Ford and several others successfully opposed this and eventually won the protracted and extremely costly lawsuit.

In the midst of all this, Ford still had to build cars. The first type he brought to market was the Model A. While other manufacturers often came up with complicated names for their products, Ford followed the alphabet. This model, the "A", of which by the way a fine example can be seen in the Louwman Museum, was an immediate success.

Initially, Ford automobiles were priced on par with the competition. The different models succeeded one another, still following the alphabet. At a certain point, Henry Ford came up with the idea of making a car that was a simple, lightweight model. An inexpensive car that could be produced in large numbers.

However, one of the other major shareholders, Alexander Malcolmson, believed that more profit could be made with more expensive luxury cars. The Model B (and later the Model K) was the result of this theory.

Shortly after the Model K came out, Henry Ford bought out this major shareholder for $175,000. From that moment on, Henry Ford could decide for himself how things should move forward. The Model N deviated from the line followed up to that point. This type was considerably cheaper than the comparable model from Oldsmobile.

Below is an overview of the main types that ultimately led to the T.

Model A produced from July 1903.

This model was built at the Mack Avenue plant. This car had a 2 cylinder engine, 8 hp and a speed of approx. 48 km/h. The price was $750 (for the 2 seater version), or $850 (for the 4 seater version). Approximately 1,750 units were produced.

Model B, produced from October 1904. After the factory moved in November 1904, this model was produced in the "Piquette Plant". This car had a 4-cylinder engine, 24 hp and a top speed of about 60 km/h. The price was $2000. Around 500 units were produced.

Model C, produced from November 1904. This car had a 2-cylinder engine, 10 hp and a speed of about 60 km/h. The price was $850. Around 800 units were built.

Model F, produced from March 1905. This car had a 2 cylinder engine, 12 hp and a speed of approx. 60 km/h. The price was $ 1100. About 1,000 units were built.

Model K, produced from April 1906. This car had a 6 cylinder inline engine, 40 hp and a top speed of about 80 km/h. The price was $2,500. About 900 units were built. Around 25 of them still exist.

Model N, produced from July 1906. This car had a 4 cylinder engine, 15 hp and a top speed of about 72 km/h. The price was $600. Around 7,000 units were built.

Model R, produced from April 1907. This car had a 4 cylinder engine, 15 hp and a speed of about 72 km/h. The price was $750. About 2,500 were produced.

Model S, produced from August 1907. This car had a 4 cylinder engine, 15 hp and a speed of approx. 72 km/h. The price was $700. About 3,750 of these were built.

Model T, produced from October 1908. This car had a 4 cylinder engine, 20 hp and a speed of approx. 72 km/h. The price was initially $850. A total of 15,007,033 were produced up to May 1927.

The first 14,000 cars were produced at the Piquette Plant factory, after which production was moved to the brand new, enormous Highland Park factory complex.

Especially during the final production years of the Model T, considerable opposition arose around developing a successor to this hugely successful model. This opposition, particularly from Henry Fords son Edsel, the intended successor to his father, wanted a new model to be developed. A new model had to be introduced, just as the competition regularly brought out new models, especially their eternal rival, General Motors.

After production of the Model T ended in May 1927, Ford's factory stood idle for six months to convert the production line to the newly developed Model A Ford. This was a car with a 4-cylinder 40 hp engine and a completely new gearbox. The car reached a speed of about 100 km/h. Around 5,000,000 units of this model, which was produced until 1932, were built. After the Model A Ford, the Model B Ford was also produced.

In 1932 a completely new engine was developed for subsequent models. This new engine was the V8 engine, with an output of 80 hp. Ford had developed a process to cast the V8 engine as a single block, and it became an overwhelming success. In terms of cost this process was highly efficient and gave the company an edge over the competition, which also produced V8 engines but still used the traditional, much more expensive method.

Incidentally, the B-Ford could also be supplied with a V8 engine.

After the B-Ford they switched to a different type designation and no longer used the A, B or other letters.

The Model T Ford is and remains an exceptional car. The Louwman Museum has an early and a later example on display, so you can clearly see how the car evolved over the years. Pay particular attention to the different materials that were used; for instance, the early radiator is made of copper, while the later version is made of pressed steel.

Fords aim was to produce the car more and more efficiently without compromising the overall quality of the car. The steering wheel, which at that time was traditionally on the right side of the car, was moved to the left, partly for traffic safety reasons, in those countries where people drove on the right side of the road. Ford was one of the first to make this change.

In 1925 you only paid US $290. This was achieved first by using cheaper materials in production and by standardizing as many parts as possible. In 1913 Henry Ford was the first to introduce the assembly line in the automobile industry for the production of his Model T Fords. From that time on, significantly more Model T Fords rolled off the assembly line each year. In 1914 Ford therefore doubled his workers daily wages to US $5 and introduced the 8 hour workday. Everyone wanted to work at Ford. Work was done in 3 shifts.

Mass production also put an end to the lacquering methods in the automobile industry. The traditional paints for car bodies dried too slowly. Painting a car still took 10 days. Ford discovered that the only paint that dried quickly enough to keep production from stalling was a sticky substance called "Black Japan." It was a mixture of asphalt, copal (a type of resin), linseed oil, and turpentine.

Ford made the best of a bad situation when he said:

"THE MODEL T IS AVAILABLE IN ANY COLOR, AS LONG AS IT IS BLACK."

From this now famous statement one might conclude that all Model Ts were painted black. That is not the case, however. Until January 1914 (and after 1925, when paint technology finally managed to keep up with the assembly line) there was a choice of several colors. 1917 was an important year for the United States: the country became involved in the First World War. Industry switched to war production, and for Ford this meant that truck production was stepped up. 1917 was also an important year for Ford itself. Now that Henry Ford had mastered mass production, he looked for a way to become independent of suppliers. He also wanted to bring the production of all parts under his own control. To achieve this, Henry Ford started looking for a site to build an entirely new factory complex. It was called "The Rouge," after the river of the same name. Raw materials such as iron ore arrived by ship and were processed in Ford's own blast furnaces into steel, which was then turned into parts. The ships that transported the ore were also owned by Ford.

The Model T Ford was a groundbreaking car. You might therefore expect that driving a Model T Ford would also be advanced; judge for yourself:

The first 800 Model T Fords had only two pedals and a lever for driving in reverse. All Model T Fords after that had 3 pedals: with the left pedal pressed down you have 1st gear, released is 2nd gear. The middle pedal, when pressed, is for driving in reverse. The right pedal is the brake. The throttle lever is on the steering wheel. Good luck!

Hans Maas in collaboration with the Editorial Team Louwman Museum