Ford's Model T is 100 years old this year
Monday May 05, 2008
The "Tin Lizzie", or "Flivver", as the Ford Model T is affectionately known, is 100 years old this year. Introduced in October of 1908 as a 1909 model, the Ford Model T was the first car to truly bring motoring to the masses. By the time production wound up in 1927, over 15 million Model Ts had been produced.
The ubiquity of the Model T meant that it became a cultural icon as much as a motoring one, with many popular songs, jokes and stories mentioning the Model T - in fact, it was sometimes said that Henry Ford had two production lines - one for the cars and the other for the jokes. Certainly, Henry Ford realised the power of "viral marketing" even then, and was all too happy for the Model T to be incorporated into contemporary culture this way.
Over the course of the model's production run, many detail changes were made to the Tin Lizzie, almost always in an effort to lower production costs or to facilitate supplying the immense demand. Henry Ford's famous "any colour you like as long as it's black" was said to have been so because the black paint dried faster and the cars could be delivered quicker as a result, not due to any aesthetic considerations. The basic technical specifications however, remained fairly unchanging despite this.
In terms of the technical specifications, the Model T was not especially interesting. It had a side valve in-line four cylinder engine in the front, driving the rear wheels through a two speed planetary gearbox. The swept volume of the engine was a modest 2896 cc, and the cylinders had slightly undersquare dimensions of 95.25 mm x 101.6 mm. Live front and rear axles were located by leaf springs - that they were made of Vanadium was a fact proudly espoused in all Ford marketing blurb at the time - and braking was courtesy of expanding drums on the rear wheels only. Power was a modest 20 bhp and the basic weight of early models was about 545 kg (1200 lb).
By bringing large-scale mass production and assembly line techniques to the automotive world, Henry Ford was able to give more people the freedom of driving than ever before, and set an industry into overdrive as the other manufacturers scrambled to catch up.
The ubiquity of the Model T meant that it became a cultural icon as much as a motoring one, with many popular songs, jokes and stories mentioning the Model T - in fact, it was sometimes said that Henry Ford had two production lines - one for the cars and the other for the jokes. Certainly, Henry Ford realised the power of "viral marketing" even then, and was all too happy for the Model T to be incorporated into contemporary culture this way.
Over the course of the model's production run, many detail changes were made to the Tin Lizzie, almost always in an effort to lower production costs or to facilitate supplying the immense demand. Henry Ford's famous "any colour you like as long as it's black" was said to have been so because the black paint dried faster and the cars could be delivered quicker as a result, not due to any aesthetic considerations. The basic technical specifications however, remained fairly unchanging despite this.
In terms of the technical specifications, the Model T was not especially interesting. It had a side valve in-line four cylinder engine in the front, driving the rear wheels through a two speed planetary gearbox. The swept volume of the engine was a modest 2896 cc, and the cylinders had slightly undersquare dimensions of 95.25 mm x 101.6 mm. Live front and rear axles were located by leaf springs - that they were made of Vanadium was a fact proudly espoused in all Ford marketing blurb at the time - and braking was courtesy of expanding drums on the rear wheels only. Power was a modest 20 bhp and the basic weight of early models was about 545 kg (1200 lb).
By bringing large-scale mass production and assembly line techniques to the automotive world, Henry Ford was able to give more people the freedom of driving than ever before, and set an industry into overdrive as the other manufacturers scrambled to catch up.
