Ford Model T
The car the moving assembly line made cheap – 15 million built between 1908 and 1927.
Henry Ford wanted to build a car ordinary people could afford. The Model T was simple, sturdy and easy to repair, and it coped with bad country roads.
When Ford introduced the moving assembly line in 1913, the time to build a car fell from many hours to about an hour and a half, and the price fell year by year. The method spread to all of industry.
Materials: Vanadium steel, wood, fabric
Manufacture: Made at Ford’s plants in Detroit; from 1913 on a moving assembly line at Highland Park.
A tall, angular body with large spoked wheels.
Three pedals and a planetary gearbox instead of a normal gear lever.
Black paint on cars from about 1914 to 1925.
The car had a four-cylinder engine of about 20 horsepower and a planetary gearbox with two forward gears operated by pedals. The high ground clearance suited country roads.
A tall, narrow body, large wheels with wooden or steel spokes and, from 1914 to the mid-1920s, almost always black paintwork.
The Model T was built as a tourer, a saloon, a coupé and a truck, and the chassis was converted into everything from tractors to school buses.