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The greatest legend in the American automobile development is the
common belief that the car is an American institution. The American
car inventors were really Johnny-come-latelys, when it came to
producing the automobile, but once they got going, they made up for
all the centuries of lost time.
Although the automobile was becoming an increasingly familiar sight
in Europe in the 1890s, it was considered a freakish contraption in
the United States. Roads were poor and few. Americans finally became
receptive to the idea of the automobile when they realized that, with
a car, they could go where they wanted to go without having to use
the railroad.
Detroit is not the original forge where the U.S. auto industry took
shape: Hartford, Cleveland, and at least a dozen other places have
better credentials. Many men and hundreds of hours of creating,
designing, and hard work went into the creation of American cars.
Several crude, experimental motorized buggies had been built in the
U.S. before the Duryea brothers built the first successful,
internal-combustion car in 1892-93.
A carriage maker in Flint, Michigan, William C. Durant designed a
motorcar and went on to organize Buick, General Motors, and
Chevrolet. George M. Pierce made bird cages, bicycles and finally,
automobiles--Pierce-Arrows. Charles W. Nash made the Nash. In 1954
the Nash Kelvinator Corp. merged with the Hudson Motor Car Company to
become the American Motors Corporation.
Car designers came from all areas and occupations. Some succeeded,
but most failed. Then, along came the son of a Michigan farmer. His
name was Henry Ford.
In 1879, Henry Ford was sixteen years old when he got a job in
Detroit. In his spare time he built an internal-combustion engine
from plans he found in a magazine. It was a bicycle-wheeled,
tiller-steered two-seater, without brakes or reverse gear. It was so
noisy that it was condemned by the public as a nuisance.
In 1898, he built an improved vehicle, but it failed in a year.
Finally he produced an automobile that was bigger, more powerful, and
much faster. A well-known bicycle rider drove the car in a race and
won. The publicity got Ford financial backing.
The first popular car was a roadster, the "Oldsmobile," designed as
an economy car by Ransom E. Olds. This car had two seats and a
one-cylinder, three-horsepower engine.
In 1900, only 8,000 cars were registered in the U.S. Olds introduced
quantity production, and became a very rich man. The car sold for
$650, about half the price of competitors. Sales zoomed from 425 in
1901, to 6,500 in 1905.
Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Ford first brought
out the Model A: a small, two cylinder car with an eight- horsepower
engine, which sold for $850. The next year, the Model B Ford was
added, a four-cylinder, which sold for $2,000. In 1906, Ford added
the Model K, an important milestone.
In 1906, New York held two auto shows. In Madison Square Garden,
there were 220 exhibits; the 69th Regiment Armory show had 205
exhibitors. Ford's Model K, introduced at Madison Square Garden, was
big, heavy, expensive and a mistake. It could go 60 mph with its
six-cylinder, 40-horsepower engine. It sold for $2,800, $2,000 more
than a Cadillac. Ford lost money on every one sold, so he
concentrated on a light, simple, rugged model that could be sold
inexpensively; what he termed "the universal automobile."
The new design was called the Model T. Adapted from the model N, it
was solidly constructed, and easy to operate and repair. Its chassis
was high to provide good clearance. A four-cylinder engine produced
20-horsepower in two forward speeds and a reverse. In 1909, the least
expensive Model T got about thirty miles to the gallon. Customers
responded to the advantages of the Model T, and new, plants were
constructed. Production increased from 10,000 in 1909 to 78,000 in
1912. In 1913, Ford found a better, faster way to build cars.
In 1914, Ford opened the world's first auto assembly line. Production
jumped to 472,000; a car could be turned out in 93 minutes. In 1924,
when half of the cars in the world were Fords, the Model T sold for
$290 and profits piled up. The last "tin lizzy" (the 15,007,003rd)
rolled off the production line in 1927. It was truly the "universal
car," in every corner of the world.
The eighteen-year supremacy of the Ford caused the disappearance of
many of the smaller car companies and the emergence of others. One of
the consolidators was the General Motors Corporation. William C.
Durant bought out the Buick Motor Company in 1904. He incorporated
General Motors in 1908 and merged Buick, Cadillac, Oldsmobile and
Oakland (Pontiac) into a single corporation. Ford's monopoly ended
after WWI; other manufacturers began to make cheaper, more attractive
cars. In 1916, the Chevrolet Motor Company put out a four-cylinder
model that eventually passed the Ford as the best-selling car in
America.
Another strong competitor of the Model T was a tough four-cylinder
Dodge manufactured by John and Horace Dodge. By 1924, they assembled
1,000 cars per day. Four years later the company was purchased for
what was then a world's record price of $175,000,000 by Walter P.
Chrysler, of the Chrysler Corporation. In 1928 the Chrysler
Corporation started selling Dodges, DeSotos Plymouths, and Chryslers.
By 1928, competition had forced new standard equipment. The self-
starter was invented in 1911, resulting in more drivers. The car had
gone from a wooden, open vehicle to a steel, fully enclosed
year-round sedan. The modern automobile was mechanically "complete"
by 1929, when 4,587,400 cars were sold in the United States. All the
major mechanical developments since then have been improvements or
refinements of existing systems.
Henry Ford did not create the automobile nor the automobile industry.
When he built his first internal-combustion engine from magazine
plans in 1896 and mounted it in a carriage, others had already built
better motor vehicles than his crude attempt. Those others must yield
the stage to Henry Ford in one aspect; it was he who captained the
manufacturing revolution. He jacked up the world and slid four wheels
under it. He said he would democratize the automobile and when he was
through, just about everyone would have a car. He kept his word. Life
would never be the same again.
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