|
NOT
known to many, the Ford Model T is celebrating its
centennial this year.
Festivities to commemorate the birth of the car that put
the “World on Wheels” began on July 20 in Richmond,
Indiana, the hallowed place in America where the Ford
Model T Museum is located.
If you
ask me, I know not of any car in the world that has a
museum specifically dedicated to it alone.
Since
I’ve visited the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn,
Michigan, a while back with Honda’s Arnel Doria as lead
man, how I’d also love to visit the Ford Model T Museum
at Richmond in the near future.
But I
need to save for that. Nowadays, with the pain at the
pump and all, it’s not easy going to some other place,
especially overseas. Pain in the pocket, too.
I don’t
know, but I’ve become a convert of the Model T after
having come across this car icon of Americana some years
back.
Surfing
the Internet, I found out that a couple, Jay and Barbara
Klehforth, own not one, not two, not three but four
Model Ts—and yet, Jay was born into a General Motors
(GM) family.
So
enamored was Jay with the Model T that he was only 13
years old when he bought his first Model T—the 1927
Model T Coupe.
“I was
attracted to the Model T because, to me, it was the
epitome of what an old car was like,” Jay was quoted as
saying. “Even though I was part of a GM family, I still
loved the T.”
The
Klehforths’ three other Model Ts are the 1923
English-built, right-hand-drive Town Car, a 1925 Touring
and a 1926 Dirt Track Racer.
Budget
allowing, I can settle for anyone of those.
The July
20 event in Richmond reportedly drew up to 1,000 Model
Ts from 45 states and eight countries, some from as far
away as Norway, Australia and New Zealand.
“Henry
Ford would be proud to know that his Model T is an
antique vehicle that is still priced so low that anyone
can own one,” Jay said. “Today, a Model T can be bought
for as little as $1,500 and restored to working order
with simple hand tools.”
Perfect!
I simply love antiques. I’ve got some old pieces of
furniture and aparador at home, but not an antique car.
Our 1950s Packard, after getting smashed by a
typhoon-felled mango tree, ended up being reduced to
Pepsi tansan in Dagupan City in the ’60s.
I’m now
seriously thinking of cutting my beer intake. Looks like
$1,500—even $2,000—is manageable. I believe I can
produce that in five years.
Thus, a
miracle it won’t be, if I can own a Model T.
‘Car of
the Century’
THE Ford
Model T, the car that revolutionized the motoring
industry, was voted “Car of the Century” on December 18,
1999, by a panel of 133 automotive journalists and
experts who began with a list of 700 candidates in 1996
and sequentially narrowed the nominees through seven
rounds of balloting over three years.
That
same year the inventor of the Model T, Henry Ford (born
on July 30, 1863, and died on April 7, 1947), was chosen
the “Car Entrepreneur of the Century.”
It is
the Model T that has changed the face of the world’s
motoring business because its birth radically
transformed the scheme of things in the production of a
car.
The
Model T was the first low-priced, mass-produced
automobile with standard, interchangeable parts.
It
became the symbol of low-cost, reliable transportation
that could get through when other vehicles and
horse-drawn wagons were stuck in muddy roads.
Its
original engine boasted 20 hp, with a top speed of 40 to
45 mph. It weighed 1,200 pounds, and achieved 13 to 21
miles per gallon. The front-mounted, 2.9-liter,
four-cylinder, flex-fuel engine was the first single
block motor with removable cylinder, and remains the
basis for most of today’s modern engines.
The
moving assembly line for the Model T revolutionized car
manufacturing in 1914.
‘Traitor
to his class’
THE mere
mention of the Model T would instantly remind us of its
inventor, Henry Ford. They are as inseparable as a
flower and a vase.
Called
the “Universal Car” by Ford, the Model T sold more than
15 million by May 26, 1927, the day Model T production
had been officially ended.
The
first Model T sold for $825 (for a two-door roadster)—an
unexpected bargain compared with other cars. But even
more remarkable is that during its 19 years of
production, Ford continued to steadily lower its
price—so low that Ford would soon earn the tag “traitor
to his class” by his fellow industrialists in his era.
 Defiant
to the end, Ford lowered the car’s price from $850 to
$290!
Astonishingly, Ford did that even after doubling the
salary of his workers to $5 from $2.50 on an
eight-hour-a-day basis—a clear response to production
surplus as a result of his introduction of the
assembly-line technology.
Ford was
amazingly setting a world trend in car manufacturing and
establishing work standards that, soon, the words
“Fordism” and “to Fordize” would mean copying his highly
successful business and technological approaches.
In
answer to criticisms from his peers branding him a
“traitor” to their class, Ford said, “The average worker
also deserves a car. And workers are also consumers.”
Those
were brave words to utter in those days. And coming
especially from a man of stature like Henry Ford, they
didn’t sit well with the elite.
But Ford
held firm in believing that well-paid workers would put
up with dull work, be loyal and buy his cars.
The
assembly line, which he fathered, allowed workers to
stay in one place and perform the same task repeatedly
on multiple vehicles that passed by them. From a net
profit of $30 million in 1914, Ford saw this jump to $60
million in 1916, the year the Model T sold a record one
million.
Changed
the world
WHEN
Ford started the assembly line in 1914, he didn’t just
revolutionize and save the fledgling automobile
industry—he changed the world.
The
Model T was Ford’s defining moment, making him one of
only 18 “Widely Admired People” of the 20th century. As
a prolific inventor, he produced 161 patents.
The
Model T also gave birth to the classic line “division of
labor,” as the car had “84 distinct steps” before it was
completed. Each worker was trained to do just one of
these steps.
Ford’s
“division of labor” formula was: “I will build cars one
piece at a time, instead of one car at a time.” This
principle allowed workers to focus on doing one thing
very well, rather than being responsible for a number of
tasks.
In
addition to its affordability, Model T stands out as the
industry’s truly first global car.
By 1921
it accounted for almost 57 percent of the world’s
automobile production.
The
Model T put Ford’s name into the lips of every American,
triggering his rebound from near-disastrous ventures
through his Henry Ford Co. established in 1901. Even as
he renamed it to Cadillac Motor Co. in 1902, it wasn’t
until Ford set up Ford Motor Co. in 1903 that he began
to hit pay dirt.
With his
Model T, Henry Ford, a farm boy in Michigan, became a
certified millionaire. The car rocketed Ford Motor Co.
to world fame.
Three
pedals
THE
first Model T is officially described as follows:
“It has
three pedals on the floor, but none of them is an
accelerator. From left to right, they’re the clutch [for
the two forward gears], a pedal for reverse gear and the
brake.
“The
accelerator is that little lever on the right side of
the steering column. It’s right across from that
left-side lever, which is the spark advance.
“Then
there’s that whole business about cranking the Model
T—literally—to start it, using an actual crank that
sticks out below the radiator.”
As part
of the centennial fest this year of the Model T, Ford
Motor Co. has challenged five universities from around
the world to create a revolutionary global vehicle for
today that shares the Model T’s attributes: simple,
lightweight, practical, compelling—and priced below
$7,000.
Two
winners will be selected, earning their school $25,000
each in scholarships.
The
winners will be announced on October 1, 2008.
‘Innovator, not inventor’
FOR a
man who built his first steam engine at age 15, became a
machinist’s apprentice at 16 and was widely credited for
being the inventor of the car in 1896 (the quadricycle),
Henry Ford would rather call himself “an innovator,
rather than an inventor.”
His Ford
Motor Co. has become a global automotive industry leader
based in Dearborn, Michigan, which manufactures or
distributes automobiles in 200 markets across six
continents. With about 245,000 employees and about 100
plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated
automotive brands now include Jaguar, Land Rover,
Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda.
Known as
the “boy who loved to fix watches in the neighborhood,”
Henry Ford, when he died of cerebral hemorrhage at 84 in
1947, was one of only a few billionaires in the world.
In February this year, Forbes placed Ford, whose only
child Edsel died at 47 in 1943, at a net value of $188.1
billion.
For
someone who never believed in accountants employed in
his company, that was no mean feat.
And,
yes, when Henry Ford unleashed the Model T in 1908, he
said he only wanted to build “a car for the multitude.”
One
hundred years later, it has remained the rave, if not
rev, of all time. |
