The automotive revolution signed by Ford with the Model T

The first example saw the light of day on 27 September 1908 in the Piquette plant, near Detroit, to begin a history studded with records that would end in 1927 with over 15 million cars produced. Simple name, Ford Model T, and everything really simple for the car destined to revolutionize mass motorization in the United States. It cost $850, 170 days’ wages for the worker who produced it, and which Ford paid more than other manufacturers. In theory everyone could afford it. The price was less than a third of that of models offered by competing brands.

A myth celebrated by the market and cinema

An icon that ended up in Mack Sennett’s silent comedies and those of Laurel and Hardy, often disassembled into a thousand pieces as proof of its ease of disassembly and maintenance. Henry Ford with his torpedo had put modernity on the launch pad and not only for the first large-scale assembly line which reduced time and costs: just under three and a half meters in length, just over half a ton in weight, almost three thousand in displacement (2,893 cm3) and a speed just above 70 kmh for 20 horsepower. It was powered by petrol because the price of oil was falling, and it took just an hour and a half to assemble one. The Ford Motor Company would have invaded the market with the Model T.

Four “dads” for a four-wheeled symbol

In addition to Ford, his “fathers” were Charles Harold Wills and two Hungarians, József Galamb and Jenő Farkas, who saw far ahead and pointed the way to progress. If the structure was simple and functional, today it would be problematic to drive a “T”. Only two gears, which were engaged with one of the three pedals (like reverse, with a second pedal), accelerator operated with a hand lever, traction on the rear wheels where the only brakes were located, drum brakes, a banal leaf spring as suspension , practically no instrumentation, wooden spokes on the rim so that any craftsman who maintained the still very widespread horse carriages could replace or repair them, crank start; but the ignition system was designed by the genius of Tomas Alva Edison. The petrol tank was under the front seat, and in a second series in front of the dashboard, options which today would prevent it from being approved for dangerous purposes.

An extraordinary success with 15 million copies

Henry Ford is credited with saying that the Model T could be ordered in any color as long as it was black, opaque because the paint cost less and production times were shorter, but in reality even if the large mass was of that shade the different colors were not lacking. The idea that led to its conception is contained in another concept of Henry Ford’s: what is not there cannot be broken. And the Model T didn’t leave anyone standing. The success was resounding and not even an advertising campaign was necessary to support its sales. A multifaceted and modular car, it could easily be modified according to tastes and needs, in the versions of a rustic country van and an elegant Sedan class for the upper class, in addition to the standard Touring version. In 1918 a version convertible into a tractor was launched and in 1924 the ten millionth example was celebrated.

From Laurel and Hardy comics to an icon of an era

Hollywood cinema immediately appropriated it, and it was impossible not to do so, considering its diffusion. With Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy the unmistakable silhouette of the Model T became an emblem of America. In shorts and feature films it was disassembled, crushed between two trams, sawed in two, twisted, and continued to march, dismantled piece by piece, ended up in water, disintegrated by a boat. It was the stars and stripes symbol of mass motorization, in the city and in the countryside. Over time the purchase price had more than halved. But the same progress that had given birth to it in 1908 made it obsolete after almost twenty years and records of all kinds. The last example rolled off the assembly line on 27 May 1927. Having entered the imagination, an icon of an era, it was destined to perpetuate its myth in automotive museums. Its heart, the engine, was produced until 1941.