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Ford Model-T |
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| Manufacturer |
Ford Motor Company- founded in 1903 |
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| The Man |
Henry Ford |
b. July 30, 1863, Michigan., US |
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d. April 7, 1947, Dearborn, Michigan |
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Born in Wayne County,
Michigan, Ford showed an early interest in mechanics, constructing his first
steam engine at the age of 15. In 1893 he built his first internal
combustion engine, a small one-cylinder gasoline model, and in 1896 he built
his first automobile. |
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In June 1903, Ford helped
establish Ford Motor Company. In 1908, the highly successful Model T
was introduced. Demand for this car was so great that Ford developed new
mass-production methods in order to manufacture it in sufficient quantities;
in 1911 he established the industry's first branch assembly plant (in Kansas
City, Mo.); in 1913 he introduced the world's first moving assembly line for
cars; and in 1914, to further improve labor productivity, he introduced the
$5 daily wage for an 8-hour day (replacing $2.34 for a 9-hour day). |
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In addition to earning numerous patents on auto mechanisms, Ford served as a
vice president of the Society of Automotive Engineers when it was founded
in 1905 to standardize U.S. automotive parts. Ford served as president of
the Ford Motor Company from 1906 to 1919 and from 1943 to 1945. |
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The Car |
The first production Model T Ford was assembled at
the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit on October 1, 1908. Over the next
19 years, Ford would build 15,000,000 automobiles with the Model
"T" engine, the longest run of any single model apart from the
Volkswagen Beetle. From 1908-1927, the Model T would endure with little
change in its design. Henry Ford had succeeded in his quest to build a
car for the masses. The Model-T would be voted the car of
the twentieth century. |
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By mid-1914 there were more than 500,000 Model T's on the roads of the world; by 1923 the company was producing more than half of America's automotive vehicles and by the end of the 1920s had more than 20 assembly plants overseas in Europe, Latin America, Canada, Asia, South Africa, and Australia. The Ford had become the world's most familiar make of car. |
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In 1927 the last Model T and the first new Model A were produced, followed in 1932 by the first Ford V-8. In 1922 Ford had acquired the Lincoln Motor Company (founded 1917), which would produce Ford's luxury Lincolns and Continentals. In 1938 Ford introduced the first Mercury, a car in the medium-priced range. Ford's only other independent make, the Edsel, was a financial failure and lasted but three years, 1957-59. |
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Note: When young Ford left his father's farm in 1879 for Detroit, only two out
of eight Americans lived in cities; when he died at age 83, the
proportion was five out of eight. Once Ford realized the tremendous part
he and his Model T automobile had played in bringing about this change,
he wanted nothing more than to reverse it, or at least to recapture the
rural values of his boyhood. Henry Ford, then, is an apt symbol of the
transition from an agricultural to an industrial America. |
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