August 1908: First ford model T completed - [Opinion]

IN 1908, HENRY FORD HAD BEEN WORKING in the auto business for more than a decade, and the Ford Motor Co., five years old and already profitable, had so far followed its peers by catering to the well-to-do. Its Model K, introduced in 1906, was priced at around US $2,800, and the smaller Model N, introduced the same year, sold for $500-about what the average person earned in a year. • Then, on 12 August 1908, the age of the automobile began, because on that day the first Ford Model T was assembled at Detroit's Piquette Avenue Plant. It went on sale on 1 October. • Ford made his goals clear: "I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials… after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one." He met those goals, thanks to his vision and to the talent he was able to recruit, notably the designers Childe Harold Wills, Joseph A. Galamb, Eugene Farkas, Henry Love, C. J. Smith, Gus Degner, and Peter E. Martin. • The four-cylinder water-cooled engine put out 15 kilowatts (20 horsepower), the top speed was 72 kilometers per hour (45 miles per hour), and the price was low. Runabout, the most popular model, sold for $825 in 1909, but continuous design and manufacturing improvements let Ford lower the price to $260 by 1925. That represented about two and a half months' wages for the average worker at the time. Today, the average new-car price in the United States is $34,000, or about 10 months' median salary.