When was the first car made by ford

While working as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit, Henry Ford (1863-1947) built his first gasoline-powered horseless carriage, the Quadricycle, in the shed behind his home. In 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company, and five years later the company rolled out the first Model T. In order to meet overwhelming demand for the revolutionary vehicle, Ford introduced revolutionary new mass-production methods, including large production plants, the use of standardized, interchangeable parts and, in 1913, the world’s first moving assembly line for cars. Enormously influential in the industrial world, Ford was also outspoken in the political realm. Ford drew controversy for his pacifist stance during the early years of World War I and earned widespread criticism for his anti-Semitic views and writings.

Henry Ford: Early Life & Engineering Career

Henry Ford driving his Quadricycle, circa 1896.

Born in 1863, Henry Ford was the first surviving son of William and Mary Ford, who owned a prosperous farm in Dearborn, Michigan. At 16, he left home for the nearby city of Detroit, where he found apprentice work as a machinist. He returned to Dearborn and work on the family farm after three years, but continued to operate and service steam engines and work occasional stints in Detroit factories. In 1888, he married Clara Bryant, who had grown up on a nearby farm.

Did you know? The mass production techniques Henry Ford championed eventually allowed Ford Motor Company to turn out one Model T every 24 seconds.

In the first several years of their marriage, Ford supported himself and his new wife by running a sawmill. In 1891, he returned with Clara to Detroit, where he was hired as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. Rising quickly through the ranks, he was promoted to chief engineer two years later. Around the same time, Clara gave birth to the couple’s only son, Edsel Bryant Ford. On call 24 hours a day for his job at Edison, Ford spent his irregular hours on his efforts to build a gasoline-powered horseless carriage, or automobile. In 1896, he completed what he called the “Quadricycle,” which consisted of a light metal frame fitted with four bicycle wheels and powered by a two-cylinder, four-horsepower gasoline engine.

Henry Ford: Birth of Ford Motor Company and the Model T

Henry Ford with his Model T.

Getty Images

Determined to improve upon his prototype, Ford sold the Quadricycle in order to continue building other vehicles. He received backing from various investors over the next seven years, some of whom formed the Detroit Automobile Company (later the Henry Ford Company) in 1899. His partners, eager to put a passenger car on the market, grew frustrated with Ford’s constant need to improve, and Ford left his namesake company in 1902. (After his departure, it was reorganized as the Cadillac Motor Car Company.) The following year, Ford established the Ford Motor Company.

A month after the Ford Motor Company was established, the first Ford car—the two-cylinder, eight-horsepower Model A—was assembled at a plant on Mack Avenue in Detroit. At the time, only a few cars were assembled per day, and groups of two or three workers built them by hand from parts that were ordered from other companies. Ford was dedicated to the production of an efficient and reliable automobile that would be affordable for everyone; the result was the Model T, which made its debut in October 1908.

Henry Ford: Production & Labor Innovations

The “Tin Lizzie,” as the Model T was known, was an immediate success, and Ford soon had more orders than the company could satisfy. As a result, he put into practice techniques of mass production that would revolutionize American industry, including the use of large production plants; standardized, interchangeable parts; and the moving assembly line. Mass production significantly cut down on the time required to produce an automobile, which allowed costs to stay low. In 1914, Ford also increased the daily wage for an eight-hour day for his workers to $5 (up from $2.34 for nine hours), setting a standard for the industry.

Even as production went up, demand for the Tin Lizzie remained high, and by 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts. In 1919, Ford named his son Edsel as president of Ford Motor Company, but he retained full control of the company’s operations. After a court battle with his stockholders, led by brothers Horace and John Dodge, Henry Ford bought out all minority stockholders by 1920. In 1927, Ford moved production to a massive industrial complex he had built along the banks of the River Rouge in Dearborn, Michigan. The plant included a glass factory, steel mill, assembly line and all other necessary components of automotive production. That same year, Ford ceased production of the Model T, and introduced the new Model A, which featured better horsepower and brakes, among other improvements. By that time, the company had produced some 15 million Model Ts, and Ford Motor Company was the largest automotive manufacturer in the world. Ford opened plants and operations throughout the world.

Henry Ford: Later Career & Controversial Views

The Model A proved to be a relative disappointment, and was outsold by both Chevrolet (made by General Motors) and Plymouth (made by Chrysler); it was discontinued in 1931. In 1932, Ford introduced the first V-8 engine, but by 1936 the company had dropped to number three in sales in the automotive industry. Despite his progressive policies regarding the minimum wage, Ford waged a long battle against unionization of labor, refusing to come to terms with the United Automobile Workers (UAW) even after his competitors did so. In 1937, Ford security staff clashed with UAW organizers in the so-called “Battle of the Overpass,” at the Rouge plant, after which the National Labor Relations Board ordered Ford to stop interfering with union organization. Ford Motor Company signed its first contract with UAW in 1941, but not before Henry Ford considered shutting down the company to avoid it.

Ford’s political views earned him widespread criticism over the years, beginning with his campaign against U.S. involvement in World War I. He made a failed bid for a U.S. Senate seat in 1918, narrowly losing in a campaign marked by personal attacks from his opponent. In the Dearborn Independent, a local newspaper he bought in 1918, Ford published a number of anti-Semitic writings that were collected and published as a four volume set called The International Jew. Though he later renounced the writings and sold the paper, he expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and Germany, and in 1938 accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime’s highest medal for a foreigner.

Edsel Ford died in 1943, and Henry Ford returned to the presidency of Ford Motor Company briefly before handing it over to his grandson, Henry Ford II, in 1945. He died two years later at his Dearborn home, at the age of 83.

The Model T, sold by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1927, was the earliest effort to make a car that most people could actually buy. Modern cars were first built in 1885 in Germany by Karl Benz, and the first American cars in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1893 by Charles and Frank Duryea. But just because they were available didn’t mean that ordinary people could afford them.

The Model T was actually affordable and it became so popular at one point that a majority of Americans owned one, directly helping rural Americans become more connected with the rest of the country and leading to the numbered highway system. The manufacturing needs of the Model T went hand in hand with Ford’s revolutionary modernization of the manufacturing process. 

Henry Ford Invents the Model T Engine

By day he was chief engineer at Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit, but at night Henry Ford labored over a gasoline engine. He successfully tested one on Christmas Eve, 1893, with the help of his wife, Clara, taking a break from Christmas cooking. The engine worked for 30 seconds, long enough to confirm for Ford that he was on the right track.

Three years later, Ford developed the Quadcycle, a self-propelled vehicle. After two failed business ventures, the Ford Motor Company was born on June 16, 1903.

Did you know? Between 1913 and 1927, Ford factories produced more than 15 million Model Ts.

The production of the Model T was preceded by eight car models through which Ford developed various aspects that would eventually come together as the Model T.

Official Model T development began in January 1907, when Ford assembled a team comprised of engineer Childe Harold Wills, machinist C.J. Smith and draftsman Joseph Galamb in his small Detroit factory on Piquette Avenue.

Selling the Model T

Released on October 1, 1908, the Ford Model T was a self-starting vehicle with a left-sided steering wheel, featuring an enclosed four-cylinder engine with a detachable cylinder head and a one-piece cylinder block. Fashioned from vanadium alloy steel, it offered superior strength despite its light weight. It also featured a generous ground clearance that could take the worst roads, which made it particularly enticing to rural drivers. The Model T was the first Ford with all its parts built by the company itself.

Selling for $850, it was considered a reasonable value, though still slightly higher than the income of the average American worker. Ford’s goal was to continue lowering prices.

After selling 10,607 Model Ts, Ford announced that the company would cease to sell the Model R or Model S cars, famously remarking that "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

A Publicity Stunt to the Top of a Scottish Mountain

Ford typically engineered publicity stunts to get his cars covered in British newspapers. In 1911, a Scottish car dealer proposed challenging his son Henry Alexander Jr. to drive a Model T to the summit of Ben Nevis in the Scottish Highlands, the highest mountain in the British Isles at 4,411 feet. The bet was that if he failed to reach the summit Alexander would lose his allowance.

Starting at nearby Fort William, the Model T drove over rocks, across bogs and through snow on a five-day journey. The car ascended to the summit using a zig-zag driving pattern.

After his descent, Alexander was greeted by a cheering crowd of hundreds, after which he made brake adjustments and drove the car back to his father’s dealership in Edinburgh.

Following the publicity, over 14,000 Model Ts were sold in the UK. It was the last time Ford felt a publicity stunt was necessary to sell his cars there.

Highland Park Assembles Model T's in Under 6 Hours

By 1913, a new 60-acre factory was built in Highland Park to churn out Model Ts. At the time it was considered to be the biggest factory in the world, and the number of Ford employees more than doubled.

For this plant, Ford worked to improve the assembly line of the manufacturing process. On April 1 tests were run, an attempt to assemble a flywheel magneto for the Model T. This was the first moving assembly line ever, utilizing conveyor belts inspired by Chicago meatpacking plants.

Each aspect of assembly was transformed into moving assembly, which improved efficiency and cut manufacturing time. In six months the time to build a Model T was reduced from nine hours and fifty-four minutes for one motor to five hours and fifty-six minutes.

The factory was divided into sections, each assembling a single part of the car in an incremental building process. The Highland Park factory eventually featured 500 of these departments in its assembly line.

Origins of 'Tin Lizzie'

The nickname “Tin Lizzie” is often applied to the Model T, though its origin is unknown.

One tradition claims Lizzie was a generic name given to horses and was passed onto the Model T. Later, a San Antonio car dealer complained to the factory about ill-fitting doors on the car and asked if cars could be shipped without doors but include a tool kit for purchasers to cut their own, reminiscent of a tin can opener.

Another claim says that during a 1922 race at Pikes Peak, Colorado, participant Noel Bullock named his Model T “Old Liz,” but its unkempt state made people compare it to a tin can, earning it the “Tin Lizzie” moniker. Unexpectedly, Bullock’s car won and the nickname stuck to all Model Ts.

Anti-Semitic Newspaper Sold With Each Model T

Ford began to adopt anti-Semitic views and the Model T was used to spread them.

Ford’s anti-Semitism was mainly expressed through the Dearborn Independent, which he purchased in 1919.

Also known as the Ford International Weekly, dealers were required to sell a subscription with each Model T, helping it reach a circulation topped only by the New York Post. Many dealers, unhappy with this arrangement, complained and tried to circumvent the policy.

The final Model T went down the assembly line on May 26, 1927. By December, the Dearborn Independent folded as well.

Model T Ends, Model A Debuts

Competition arose in the mid-1920s giving consumers about 10 times more choices of touring car models than a decade earlier. The Model T tried to compete, but sales dropped and it became considered old fashioned and was the frequent butt of popular jokes.

After much hesitation by Ford, it was announced in 1927 that Model Ts would no longer be manufactured. The new Ford called Model A debuted in December after having to scrap 40 thousand tools that could only be used to build Model Ts.

Sources

My Life and Work by Henry Ford, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Page & Co., 1922

I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford, by Richard Snow, Scribner, May 2014

Why a Model T was driven to the top of Ben Nevis, by Steven McKenzie, BBC, May 17, 2018