Ford Model T: The Car That Put the World on Wheels
When Ford Motor Company introduced the Model T in late 1908, company officials knew they had a winner. Ford was already the national sales leader and the new car was a significant improvement over its predecessors. Yet even an inveterate optimist like Henry Ford could not predict the far-reaching changes his “Tin Lizzie” would affect.One hundred years later, this marvelously illustrated history of the automobile that launched an American industry takes on all aspects of the Model T’s genesis, production, marketing, and legacy. Veteran automotive journalist and editor Lindsay Brooke examines everything from infrastructure considerations that influenced the car’s design (its ground clearance, for example, was predicated on the abysmal state of U.S. roadways) to the production methods that evolved to meet the burgeoning demand for the car, and Ford Motor Company’s introduction of the revolutionary “five-dollar day.” Brooke also covers the Model T’s predecessors, early sales and marketing efforts, model changes, and T trucks, as well as adventures and misadventures with Model Ts and the car’s role in early motorsports and hot rodding.Illustrated throughout with photography and period art, much of it from the Benson Ford Research Center at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, Model T: The Car That Put the World on Wheelsis a fitting tribute to the first automotive icon.