Henry ford creates the model t
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The all-new 1928 Model A Ford was manufactured and assembled at the River Rouge plant starting in November 1927 and the plant served as Ford's principal manufacturing facility into the 1950s. The new company's first product, the Model A, was conventional by the standards of the day. Here workers are seen lining up chassis outside the plant for a publicity photo.
The first 2,500 Model Ts carried gear-driven water pumps rather than the thermosiphon cooling system adopted later. These features were standard on other makes but cost extra on a Ford, keeping the base price low.
1927 Ford Model T Touring Car, The Fifteen-Millionth Ford
Automobile
After 19 years and some 15 million cars, Ford Motor Company ended production of its venerable Model T.
Company officials designated this car as the Fifteen Millionth and ceremonial "last" Model T. They gathered at Ford's Highland Park plant to watch Henry Ford and Edsel Ford drive it off the assembly line on May 26, 1927.
Ford Model T in the Mud during the New York-Seattle Transcontinental Race, 1909
Photographic print
Ford Motor Company promoted the Model T's reliability by entering two cars in the 1909 Transcontinental Race from New York to Seattle.
Even though the Model T Touring Car would retail for $850 and would not be available until October, the circular touched off a frenzy of orders from dealers. Once blackboard drawings or blueprints were completed, Ford moved a drill press, lathe, and milling machine into the "experimental room," where machinist C. J. Smith turned drawings into parts.
While those in the city had access to railroads and streetcars, or could bicycle on paved roads, the farmer was limited to the distance his horse -- or feet -- could travel. The automobile accelerated that social change.
1906 Ford Model N and 1925 Ford Model T
Photographic print
Ford Motor Company introduced the Model N in 1906.
The original administration building, signature power house with its distinctive five smokestacks, a four-story reinforced concrete factory building featuring an enormous "Ford Motor Company" sign, two machine shops, two crane ways, and two loading docks are no longer standing. 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 N was succeeded by the Model T in 1908, which fulfilled Mr. Ford's vision and remained in production until 1927. There, draftsman Joseph Galanib set up blackboards and a drafting table to convert the design ideas of Henry Ford and his chief engineer Childe Harold Wills into blueprints. The Highland Park plant was the principal assembly plant for the Model T Ford from 1910 until the passing of the Model T in 1927.
Cars were put together by crews moving from vehicle to vehicle. Henry Ford and Albert Kahn together introduced innovative factory architecture at the River Rouge Plant sprawling single-story steel-framed buildings encased in glass. The new model featured the extensive use of vanadium steel in gears, crankshafts, springs, and other parts subject to stress, an innovative flywheel magneto, a durable planetary transmission, and other features not found in competitive cars.
There, Ford manufactured almost all of the components for a complete automobile, including engines, transmissions, frames, bodies, tires, and glass. He sold his Quadricycle for $200, then used the money to build his second car.
1903 Ford Model A Runabout
Automobile
After his first two attempts at commercial automobile manufacturing failed, Henry Ford found success with Ford Motor Company, established in 1903.