Ford’s Model T: It all began 100 years ago
04-20-2008 | 11:21 AM
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Ford’s Model T: It all began 100 years ago
Ford’s Model T: It all began 100 years ago
SANDWICH, Mass. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the most influential automobile of all time: Henry Ford’s Model T.
Known affectionately as the Tin Lizzie, the Model T was the first affordable motor car and arguably ushered in the modern suburban lifestyle, according to Steven Hatch, assistant curator of history at the Heritage Museums and Gardens’ J.K. Lilly III Automobile Museum.
“It was the right car at the right time,” he said during a recent visit. “Henry Ford perfected a reliable automobile at a price people could afford.”
It was mechanically simple and relatively reliable and proved so popular that an astonishing 15 million were produced in its 19 years of production from 1908 to 1927.
Consider that the only automobile with a bigger production run has been the Volkswagen Beetle, with 21 million produced — but over 65 years between 1938 and 2003.
To mark the anniversary of the Model T, Hatch has organized a small exhibit at the Auto Museum that includes a 1915 Ford Model T Couplet, a 1915 Ford Model T Roadster Pickup and a 1923 Ford Model T Snowmobile with skis instead of front wheels.
The title of the exhibit, which includes photos, engaging quotations and informative commentary, is “You Can’t Go to Town in a Bathtub,” reflects the observation made by a farmer’s wife in the 1920s when asked why there was a Model T in the driveway but no indoor plumbing in the house.
Ford Motor Co. has also planned a number of events to celebrate the anniversary, including a special Model T display at the “The Fabulous Fords Forever!” event at Knott’s Berry Farm Amusement Park in Anaheim, Calif., today. Ford will also be the title sponsor of the Model T Ford Club of America’s “T Party 2008” at the Wayne County Fairgrounds in Richmond, Ind., July 21 to 26.
The Model T was so named because Ford had been using letters to identify his experimental cars, starting with A and ending up with the commercially successful T. At the same time, he was not systematic, according to Hatch, so while there is a 1903 Model A, which is not to be confused with the 1927 Model A, there was never a Model G or
Model P.
The Model T had a 2.9 liter, 4-cylinder engine producing 20 horsepower. Fuel efficiency was about 17 miles to the gallon and top speed was about 40 mph. Compared with modern cars, it is complicated to drive. Three floor pedals control the clutch, set the car in reverse and the brake, while the throttle/accelerator and the spark adjuster are controlled by two levers off the steering wheel.
“I don’t like driving them,” said Hatch. “They’re tricky.”
But they certainly were affordable, with the price actually declining from about $800 to $400 as Ford perfected his legendary assembly lines. Hatch said Ford dropped the price because he wanted to sell more cars to more people.
Hatch said the skis on the 1923 Ford Model T Snowmobile came with a $400 conversion kit and included a dead axle in front of the rear wheels for the displaced front wheels and heavy duty steel tracks for the rear sets of wheels. He said only 50 percent of the roads were cleared in the 1920s and the converted roadster truck would have been used by postal and power line workers.
Adjacent is a 1922 Ford Model T Howe Pumper fire truck while upstairs the museum continues to display one of its most popular exhibits, a 1913 Ford Model T Touring, which visitors can sit in to get the feel of driving more than 100 years ago.
Hatch said the exhibit at the museum is focused on how people adapted to the Model T, using it for a variety of functions and in the process changing their lifestyles. It was used for almost everything in addition to driving, including plowing, delivering goods, even roping cattle. (Hatch swears he’s seen a photograph of a women lassoing cattle from a Model T’s running board.)
And by attaching a drive wheel over a rear wheel, as demonstrated in the exhibit, and jacking the car up, the motor could also be used to power such tools as saws through leather belts. Indeed, one photo shows an open saw blade and a six-inch leather belt being used to cut wood.
“It was sold without guards, well before the days of OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration),” said Hatch, noting the whirring belt provided another source of danger.
“They were used for any and everything on the farm,” he said, citing “water pumps on the cranberry bogs of New England, shucking corn, washing clothes, anything that can be run off a belt.”
Hatch noted that one of the myths about the Model T was that it opened up rural areas by putting America on wheels. He said it did, allowing city people to visit the country and country folks to visit the cities and both to go on driving vacations. But he said it might have been more influential in opening up suburbia, particularly outside “small cities and large towns.”
Hatch said urban boundaries had been growing along railroad and trolley lines. But the motor car, and arguably the Model T as the first affordable car, gave people the freedom to move beyond the limits of mass transportation hubs, ushering in the modern era of suburban housing developments and shopping malls.
Henry Ford is most famous for his assembly lines (as he is most infamous for his outrageous anti-Semitism). However, Hatch said Ford neither invented the automobile nor the assembly line. He just made both better, with his assembly line apparently based on the disassembly line at a Chicago slaughter house that impressed an associate with the efficiency of one man cutting the same piece of beef off carcasses as they moved along a conveyor belt.
“Ford reformulated the way we make things,” he said, noting that at one time there was practically a new invention every day at Ford’s factory.
Ford also paid his workers well — following pressure from labor disputes — and at the famous wage of $5 a day, his workers could buy a Model T after a few months’ work.
From an engineering point of view, Ford’s mantra was to keep things “simple, simple, simple,” according to Hatch. He said Ford’s attitude was if it was not necessary, why bother with it, and he extended that approach to windshield wipers and even spare tires, which were sold as add-ons.
To test the cars, Hatch said Ford would go on “hunting trips to northern Michigan,” although the real aim of the trip appeared to have been: “See if you can break this car!”
The Model T may have been reliable, but it still needed constant tinkering. Indeed, Hatch observed that “people took to the tinkering,” and consequently developed an intimate relationship with their cars.
“You were always having to fix something,” he said. “But that led to the folklore of owners being close to their cars. You may have been ready to kill it, and then it drove 15 miles when you thought it had run out of gas. It was miraculous!”
Hatch said production of the Model T ended in 1927, noting that other manufacturers were introducing competitive models while the Model T had remained pretty much unchanged. Hatch said Ford was always resistant to change, and always sure of his opinions, claiming, “I build a car people should buy.”
The Model T was succeeded by the Ford Model A, which proved another great success, but nothing on the scale of the Model T. Nearly five million Ford Model A’s were manufactured during its production run, which last from 1927 to 1931.
The Heritage Museums and Gardens, which includes three museums in a landscaped 100-acre setting, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. “You Can’t Go to Town in a Bathtub” will be on show through Oct. 31.
For more information, go to:
www.heritagemuseums- andgardens.org.
SANDWICH, Mass. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the most influential automobile of all time: Henry Ford’s Model T.
Known affectionately as the Tin Lizzie, the Model T was the first affordable motor car and arguably ushered in the modern suburban lifestyle, according to Steven Hatch, assistant curator of history at the Heritage Museums and Gardens’ J.K. Lilly III Automobile Museum.
“It was the right car at the right time,” he said during a recent visit. “Henry Ford perfected a reliable automobile at a price people could afford.”
It was mechanically simple and relatively reliable and proved so popular that an astonishing 15 million were produced in its 19 years of production from 1908 to 1927.
Consider that the only automobile with a bigger production run has been the Volkswagen Beetle, with 21 million produced — but over 65 years between 1938 and 2003.
To mark the anniversary of the Model T, Hatch has organized a small exhibit at the Auto Museum that includes a 1915 Ford Model T Couplet, a 1915 Ford Model T Roadster Pickup and a 1923 Ford Model T Snowmobile with skis instead of front wheels.
The title of the exhibit, which includes photos, engaging quotations and informative commentary, is “You Can’t Go to Town in a Bathtub,” reflects the observation made by a farmer’s wife in the 1920s when asked why there was a Model T in the driveway but no indoor plumbing in the house.
Ford Motor Co. has also planned a number of events to celebrate the anniversary, including a special Model T display at the “The Fabulous Fords Forever!” event at Knott’s Berry Farm Amusement Park in Anaheim, Calif., today. Ford will also be the title sponsor of the Model T Ford Club of America’s “T Party 2008” at the Wayne County Fairgrounds in Richmond, Ind., July 21 to 26.
The Model T was so named because Ford had been using letters to identify his experimental cars, starting with A and ending up with the commercially successful T. At the same time, he was not systematic, according to Hatch, so while there is a 1903 Model A, which is not to be confused with the 1927 Model A, there was never a Model G or
Model P.
The Model T had a 2.9 liter, 4-cylinder engine producing 20 horsepower. Fuel efficiency was about 17 miles to the gallon and top speed was about 40 mph. Compared with modern cars, it is complicated to drive. Three floor pedals control the clutch, set the car in reverse and the brake, while the throttle/accelerator and the spark adjuster are controlled by two levers off the steering wheel.
“I don’t like driving them,” said Hatch. “They’re tricky.”
But they certainly were affordable, with the price actually declining from about $800 to $400 as Ford perfected his legendary assembly lines. Hatch said Ford dropped the price because he wanted to sell more cars to more people.
Hatch said the skis on the 1923 Ford Model T Snowmobile came with a $400 conversion kit and included a dead axle in front of the rear wheels for the displaced front wheels and heavy duty steel tracks for the rear sets of wheels. He said only 50 percent of the roads were cleared in the 1920s and the converted roadster truck would have been used by postal and power line workers.
Adjacent is a 1922 Ford Model T Howe Pumper fire truck while upstairs the museum continues to display one of its most popular exhibits, a 1913 Ford Model T Touring, which visitors can sit in to get the feel of driving more than 100 years ago.
Hatch said the exhibit at the museum is focused on how people adapted to the Model T, using it for a variety of functions and in the process changing their lifestyles. It was used for almost everything in addition to driving, including plowing, delivering goods, even roping cattle. (Hatch swears he’s seen a photograph of a women lassoing cattle from a Model T’s running board.)
And by attaching a drive wheel over a rear wheel, as demonstrated in the exhibit, and jacking the car up, the motor could also be used to power such tools as saws through leather belts. Indeed, one photo shows an open saw blade and a six-inch leather belt being used to cut wood.
“It was sold without guards, well before the days of OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration),” said Hatch, noting the whirring belt provided another source of danger.
“They were used for any and everything on the farm,” he said, citing “water pumps on the cranberry bogs of New England, shucking corn, washing clothes, anything that can be run off a belt.”
Hatch noted that one of the myths about the Model T was that it opened up rural areas by putting America on wheels. He said it did, allowing city people to visit the country and country folks to visit the cities and both to go on driving vacations. But he said it might have been more influential in opening up suburbia, particularly outside “small cities and large towns.”
Hatch said urban boundaries had been growing along railroad and trolley lines. But the motor car, and arguably the Model T as the first affordable car, gave people the freedom to move beyond the limits of mass transportation hubs, ushering in the modern era of suburban housing developments and shopping malls.
Henry Ford is most famous for his assembly lines (as he is most infamous for his outrageous anti-Semitism). However, Hatch said Ford neither invented the automobile nor the assembly line. He just made both better, with his assembly line apparently based on the disassembly line at a Chicago slaughter house that impressed an associate with the efficiency of one man cutting the same piece of beef off carcasses as they moved along a conveyor belt.
“Ford reformulated the way we make things,” he said, noting that at one time there was practically a new invention every day at Ford’s factory.
Ford also paid his workers well — following pressure from labor disputes — and at the famous wage of $5 a day, his workers could buy a Model T after a few months’ work.
From an engineering point of view, Ford’s mantra was to keep things “simple, simple, simple,” according to Hatch. He said Ford’s attitude was if it was not necessary, why bother with it, and he extended that approach to windshield wipers and even spare tires, which were sold as add-ons.
To test the cars, Hatch said Ford would go on “hunting trips to northern Michigan,” although the real aim of the trip appeared to have been: “See if you can break this car!”
The Model T may have been reliable, but it still needed constant tinkering. Indeed, Hatch observed that “people took to the tinkering,” and consequently developed an intimate relationship with their cars.
“You were always having to fix something,” he said. “But that led to the folklore of owners being close to their cars. You may have been ready to kill it, and then it drove 15 miles when you thought it had run out of gas. It was miraculous!”
Hatch said production of the Model T ended in 1927, noting that other manufacturers were introducing competitive models while the Model T had remained pretty much unchanged. Hatch said Ford was always resistant to change, and always sure of his opinions, claiming, “I build a car people should buy.”
The Model T was succeeded by the Ford Model A, which proved another great success, but nothing on the scale of the Model T. Nearly five million Ford Model A’s were manufactured during its production run, which last from 1927 to 1931.
The Heritage Museums and Gardens, which includes three museums in a landscaped 100-acre setting, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. “You Can’t Go to Town in a Bathtub” will be on show through Oct. 31.
For more information, go to:
www.heritagemuseums- andgardens.org.
