Henry Ford How Ford’s model of mass production transported the automobile from exclusive toy of the rich to everyday vehicle for the masses Henry Ford did not invent the car, nor did he invent the assembly line. What he did do, however, was develop the first large-scale moving assembly line, leading to the mass production and meteoric rise of the everyday automobile. Ford’s beginnings were fairly humble. He was born on a farm in Michigan in 1863, but as a child he showed little interest in farming, preferring to spend his time dismantling toys and watches to study their inner mechanisms. While still a teenager, Ford left home in 1879 to become an apprentice machinist in Detroit, and in 1891 he took up a job as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company. He soon had enough time and money to invest in his own project to develop a horseless carriage. In 1896, he completed his first self-propelled vehicle: the Quadricycle. Gasolinepowered with a simple frame and four bicycle-like wheels, it was steered with a tiller. Its
“Ford set to work designing simple, low-cost cars that were easy to maintain, operate and handle on rough roads”
A life’s work The major milestones in Henry Ford’s journey to international fame
022 | How It Works
1863 Henry Ford is born on a farm in Michigan to parents William and Mary.
1879
1891
Henry moves to Detroit, Michigan, to begin his apprenticeship as a machinist.
He is hired by Edison Illuminating Company as an engineer, where his passion for automobiles is encouraged by Thomas Edison.
top speed was a then-impressive 32 kilometres (20 miles) per hour. The Quadricycle’s success led to interest from investors, who helped him establish his own car-manufacturing company in 1899. However, both this and another company of his failed to take off. Determined not to give up though, Ford concentrated his efforts on developing an 80-horsepower racing car, called the ‘999’. This car was raced to victory by Barney Oldfield in the Manufacturer’s Challenge Cup in October 1902. Interest in Ford was quickly rekindled, and in 1903 the Ford Motor Company was formed. Ford set to work designing simple, low-cost cars ‘for the great multitude’. In 1908, he introduced the Model T – a simple, affordable motorcar that was easy to operate, maintain and handle on rough roads. The car became so popular at the time that they were selling faster than they could be manufactured, so the company had to devise a new way to meet the growing demand. The solution came in the form of a moving assembly line. Rather than one worker assembling an entire component, they were each allocated one or two parts to put together, which was then passed on to the next person in line until it was completed. This made the process extremely efficient, and by 1914, the total time for the production of a single Model T had dropped from 12 hours to just 26 minutes and 30 seconds. As a result, the cost of the car also fell from $850 to as little as $260. Ford expanded sales and manufacturing overseas, and by the early-Twenties, half of the cars in the world were Model Ts.
1896 Henry builds his first self-propelled vehicle, the Quadricycle, which reaches a top speed of 32km/h (20mph).
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