Year of manufacture of the first car Ford Model t. Ford Model T car famous Tin Lizzie

This year marks 110 years since the advent of the car, which played a crucial role in the development of not only the auto industry, but civilization as a whole. We are talking about the famous Tin Lizzy - Ford Model T. Henry Ford flooded America with millions of inexpensive cars, putting the nation on wheels. Then the rest of the world got on wheels.

Much has been written about Tin Lizzie. No gangster film about the times of Prohibition can be imagined without participation in the Model T extras. But we are more interested not in the "assembly" era, when Ford stamped the Model T like black buttons, but in the authentic, good old Tin Lizzy of 1908, assembled by hard workers - by immigrants from the Pickett factory, is a masterpiece of the Bronze Age of automotive engineering, the period from the invention of the automobile to the First World War. It is called bronze because in those years it was bronze that was the main material used for the manufacture of spare parts and decorative elements.


Lightweight double body with folding fabric top and cargo platform. Color options: green, black, black enamel, leaf ornament.

In the early winter of 1906, mysterious events were taking place at the Ford Motor Company's Pickett Plant in Dearborn. On the third floor, Henry Ford ordered to fence off a room for a new workshop. Only a few people received admission - Ford himself, company vice president John Cousins, the best engineer of the plant, Child Harold Wills, Hungarian emigrants Jozsef Galamb and Egen Farkas, engineers Love, Smith, Degner and Martin. Several engines and frames from the then Ford Model N, samples of steel sheets and bronze blanks, a melting furnace and metalworking machines were raised to the workshop. Work continued outside the workshop until late in the evening.

Model N, the company's fifth model, has become a real bestseller. It was cheap and reliable, strong and unpretentious. In 1906, Ford managed to sell 2194 copies - an unthinkable success by the standards of the early twentieth century.


In America at that time, only the lazy did not collect cars. 485 American companies offered their products to consumers. The production technology was simple. Companies bought engines, transmissions, controls and wheels on the side. Then all this was placed on a riveted steel frame. A semblance of a salon with a cloth top or, in rare cases, with a metal roof was erected on top. There were few more buyers than the companies themselves. The average price of a car in the 1900s was $1,000—fantastic money for the time. Henry Ford understood even then that the only way to win against competitors was to reduce prices. But the shareholders of the company were of a different opinion: why give up profits that go into your own hands? Fortunately, one of the main shareholders, the lumberjack and racing driver Malcolmson, went bankrupt and was forced to sell his share to Ford. Ford got the right to vote and, without delay, changed the company's pricing policy.


Closed panel car with a folding windshield. There is only one color option: green enamel with black enamel decorative elements.

Fateful accident

The main type of car advertising in those days was racing. Ford himself did not disdain at first to personally speak on his cars. In 1901, Henry won a race at Grosse Point with his Model 999 against a car designed by renowned racing driver Alexander Vinton. It was then that he met people who later provided him with money to create the Ford Motor Company. During one of these races in Florida in 1906, Henry Ford witnessed an accident. french car. The car rolled over several times, but was practically not injured. Surprised, Ford carefully examined the car and realized that the steel from which it is made is lighter and stiffer than usual. He managed to take with him a piece of steel sheet. This fact can be considered a classic case of industrial espionage. In Dearborn, he showed the steel to his experts. It turned out that it owes its hardness, twice that of the best American steels, to the addition of vanadium. No one in Pittsburgh, America's steel capital, had a clue how to make it. Ford managed to invite a metallurgical scientist from Europe to America, who revealed to him the technology of cooking. All this happened in conditions of heightened secrecy: only two or three people from Ford's inner circle knew about what was happening.


Light express with a cabin from a wagon and a cargo platform. There is only one color option: green enamel with black enamel decorative elements.

The idea was simple - Henry Ford was not at all a supporter of complex solutions. Steel unseen in America and refinement of the successful Model N design could lead to a car that has no rivals. This is what the company's engineers were doing in the secret workshop of the Pickett factory. A large number of cars sold allowed them to accumulate extensive information about the most weak points Model N and purposefully improve them. Hungarian engineers Galamb and Farkas, together with true friend Ford Wills in a year managed to thoroughly shake up the design of the Model N, simplify and lighten the main components of the car. In September 1907, two prototypes of the future Model T were built. They turned out to be so successful that shortly after the start of testing, Ford ordered to begin re-equipping the Pickett plant under new model. By the fall of 1908, the Model N and its expensive modifications, the Model R and S, were discontinued, and assembly of the $2,500 luxury Model K was moved elsewhere. And on September 27, the first ever copy of the Ford Model T 1909 was assembled at the Pickett plant. model year. Henry Ford introduced the concept of "model year" with the advent of Tin Lizzie. All cars that were produced after August 31 of the current year were officially considered models of the next year. This practice was soon adopted by all automakers. Today, the automobile "reckoning" happens just like that.

Light express with a cabin from a wagon and a cargo platform with a folding fabric awning. Green enamel with black enamel decorations.

What's in a name

Connoisseurs say that if this car was created not by Ford, but by someone else, then time would have long since erased any memories of it. However, to make a Model T, you have to be born Henry Ford. Why "Tin Lizzy"? On this score, historians of the auto industry do not give a clear answer. But there are two main versions. Americans often prefer nicknames to real names. At the beginning of the last century, the villagers usually called their workhorses by the female name Lizzy. Well, the word "tin" does not need additional interpretation. Iron horse, in general. The second version explains things a little differently. Lizzy - so the Irish called stubborn and wayward beauties. And although it’s hard to call the Model T a beauty, if you like her, then such an explanation will do. Very often, the Americans called the Model T "Flivver", and in total this legendary car had about twenty different nicknames. But in history she remained Tin Lizzy.


Years of life: 1863−1947. Profession: inventor (author of 161 US patents), businessman, industrialist, founder of Ford. “Who really works does not need titles. His work is honor enough for him."

Practical Ford, in principle, did not create anything new. What for? After all, the main components of market success were well known to him - a strong reliable frame and transmission made of vanadium steel, a proven 2.9-liter engine and affordable price. The rest is trifles. The more buyers who can scrape together the money for a car that doesn't break down, the better. Cars, according to Ford, were supposed to be something like a hamburger. Cheap and satisfying, even if you subsequently get gastritis. When automotive historians write about the Model T, they praise its reliability in every possible way. You can't argue with that. The car was just unkillable. At the same time, not a word is said about total absence comfort, poor design and inconvenient control system. Tin Lizzie made the famous list of 50 worst cars Time Magazine. Paradox? Let's figure it out.


Ford Motor Company was less than a year old when Henry Ford decided to build his own factory in Dearborn, Michigan. The three-story factory building had an elongated shape typical of industrial architecture and a large glass area. On April 1, 1904, the company's shareholders approved the purchase of a 3.11-acre property on Pickett Avenue for $23,500. terms of reference Ford himself and John Dodge, who had a stake in the company's capital, were appointed. The firm of the brothers John and Horace Dodge was engaged in the construction of gasoline engines and supplied them to Ford for a long time. Subsequently, the brothers created their own car company. Interestingly, the first company founded by Ford, Detroit Automobile Co, which went bankrupt in 1900, was subsequently reorganized into the famous Cadillac Motor Car Company. It turns out that Henry Ford became the founder of several long-lived car brands at once. The architectural design of the three-story plant building was carried out by the Detroit company Field, Hinchmann & Smith. Construction began in June 1904, and already at the end of the same year, machine tools and furniture for office space. The company's offices were located on the first floor, but Henry Ford's own office was on the second, next to the famous experimental workshop in which Tin Lizzy was created. In addition, a warehouse for raw materials and spare parts, as well as a department for the delivery of finished products, were located on the ground floor at the rear of the building.

Simple, even easier

The tin Lizzie, like its Model N predecessor, was built on a heavy load-bearing steel frame with two longitudinal beams and transverse stiffeners made of 1/8 inch thick steel sheet. It was made for Ford at the Michigan Stamping Company. A 2.9-liter Henry Ford engine was attached to the frame along with a primitive but reliable two-stage transmission, leaf spring suspension and a body. There were many types of bodywork in those years, and automakers called them each in their own way. Six body styles were originally developed for Lizzy - Touring, Runabout, Landaulet, Town Car and Coupe, but in 1908 the Model T was produced only in Touring and Landaulet variants. Bodies were ordered from third-party manufacturers in Detroit. The upholstery of open modifications was made of thick natural black leather of a special "diamond" dressing. A cloth top, which was made from canvas dyed grey, dark red or dark green, was an optional extra. The closed Lizzies had only the seats trimmed in black leather, and the inner upholstery of the doors was made of leatherette.


Contrary to popular belief that the Model T was painted only black, in fact, this practice did not begin until 1913 with the start of the assembly line. And before 1913, there were no black Tin Lizzies at all! Buyers could choose grey, dark green or dark red body colors. Windshield was not included in standard equipment, it had to be ordered separately. At the same time, in a wooden partition between engine compartment and interior, reinforced with bronze stripes, a transverse steel beam was installed for rigidity. Otherwise, the glass simply burst on potholes, because the body of the Model T began to creak within a few days after purchase. The interior equipment was, to put it mildly, Spartan. A large wooden steering wheel with a diameter of 36 cm with bronze spokes was tightly screwed to the end of the steering shaft. Beneath it on the right were two short bronze levers with hard rubber knobs. One lever controlled the fuel supply, and the other - the ignition.

The first two thousand copies of the car on the floor had two pedals and two large levers to the left of the driver's seat, then there were three pedals, and only one lever. The left pedal engages first gear, the right pedal engages the rear wheel brake and reverse. The levers were responsible for reversing, turning on the transmission brake and neutral gear. The driving process was rather complicated, and it took quite a long time to learn how to drive Tin Lizzie. In the instructions of those years, the driver for an emergency stop was recommended to press both pedals simultaneously and pull the transmission brake lever back to the stop. The car stopped dead in its tracks. Speedometer not included standard equipment Model T, Ford Motor Company purchased these instruments in Detroit from Stewart, National and Jones.


Ford Model T cars built from 1908 to 1909 at the Pickett factory are now considered very rare and worth a lot of money. The Pickett factory's first models were the Model C, F, and B. On the second floor, the chassis and bodies of the Model B were assembled, and the third was given over to the manufacture of the Model C and F. At the end of 1906, production of these models was discontinued. And in April, after a slight re-equipment, the plant began to produce the new Model K, R, S and S Roadster. Three months later, in July, the promising Model N appeared, which became the basis for the future Tin Lizzy. At the end of the winter of 1908, after the preparation of technological documentation for newest Ford Model T, an accelerated re-equipment of the enterprise began. Previous Models were discontinued and only the assembly of the Model K continued for some time. But soon it was also discontinued. And on September 27, 1908, the first ever copy of Tin Lizzy was assembled, which was sent to the first buyer, a wealthy doctor from Detroit, on October 1. Even before assembly of the Ford Model T began, it became clear to Henry Ford that the area of ​​the Picket plant was insufficient to implement his plans, and he began to look for a place to lay a new large assembly plant. At the end of 1908, construction began on a plant on a plot of land in Highland Park. The building on Picket Avenue was owned by the Ford Motor Company until January 1911, when it was sold to another well-known auto company, Studebaker. Experts say that out of 12,000 original Model T Piquettes, no more than 100 copies remain to date.

Gravity backwards

The Tin Lizzie engine was developed by Henry Ford himself in the early 1900s and has been revised many times since then. It was an inline four-cylinder gasoline engine with a lateral arrangement of the camshaft and valve mechanism. The block was cast from cast iron in one piece along with the water jacket of the cooling system, which was a technological breakthrough for those years. fire air-fuel mixture, coming from the gravity-flowing carburetor of the Kingston system, was provided by a magneto generator connected by a belt directly to the engine shaft. The compression ratio was only 4.5:1, which made the motor very reliable during long-term operation. With a volume of 2.9 liters, he gave out only 22.5 hp. power and 112 Nm of torque. But for a very light car weighing only 540 kg, this was quite enough. Gasoline from the carburetor flowed by gravity, and when driving uphill, sometimes the engine simply stalled. Therefore, the technique of overcoming the rises was unusual - in reverse! The process of starting the engine involved the use of a manual starter, the same long-forgotten "backwater". Cranking the starter required skill. Dislocated fingers of the right hand were common, which was reflected in American jokes of those years. The motor was very noisy, despite the presence of a silencer. It was straight-through and made of thin sheet steel with asbestos gaskets between the components.


The clutch assembly was a simple wet type - three thick steel discs in an oil bath transmitted torque to the shaft of a two-speed planetary transmission designed by Ford himself. All shafts and gears of the gearbox were cast from hardened vanadium steel. In surviving Model T examples, they are usually in excellent condition. The lubrication system was common to all power plant, including the engine, clutch and gearbox, and held approximately 4 liters of engine oil. Ford engineers did not guess to make a dipstick to measure the level, and the drivers poured oil until it began to flow out of the hole on the top cover of the engine. In the early years of production, Tin Lizzy Ford purchased water cooling radiators in France from Briscoe, and then began to make them on his own. On the front side was a large bronze emblem of the Ford Motor Company. The fuel tank was located under the seats and connected to the frame with steel clamps. Its capacity was 37.5 liters. Not very much, considering that the expense Fuel Model T strongly depended on the nature of the road and the speed of movement and varied from 11 to 19 liters per 100 km. The maximum speed of Tin Lizzy was about 70 km / h, although the specimens participating in the then fashionable auto racing developed up to 150 km / h. It is terrible to imagine the sensations of a racer flying on a projectile without normal brakes and on wooden wheels at such a speed.


Brakes are not for cowards

Brake system Lizzy is a special topic. One of the most difficult moments in driving a car was the process of braking. Pushing the brake pedal and lever to a stop was not easy. The fact is that the Model T had two brakes - a steel transmission bandage that compresses the main shaft controlled by a floor lever, and a rear brake mechanism drum type in the hub, which reacted to pressing the right pedal. Brake linings were cast from bronze. They wore out very quickly, and their replacement was very laborious.

The Model T suspension, even by the standards of the Bronze Age of automotive industry, was a sample of the primitive. Front and rear wheels mounted on simple movable spindles riveted to a transverse steel leaf spring. The wheels were turned using unregulated rods, one end attached to the steering column hinge, and the other to the spindle housing. It is interesting that in this unpretentious design there was not a single lubricated unit. Ford rightly reasoned that vanadium steel would not wear out soon, and the lubrication system would increase the cost of the car. And he turned out to be right. On many of the first Lizzies that have survived to this day, the original suspension parts look like new!

The tires of the car were rubber, with a tube inside. The hub and long spokes were made of special "artillery" wood, reinforced in loaded places with bronze bandages. Paradoxically, the fanatic of simplification and unification Ford used in the Model T different wheel sizes for the front and rear axle! Owners had to carry with them not one, but two spares. However, at Ford's Canadian plant in Walkerville, the Tin Lizzies were produced with the same wheels. For the southern states of the United States, famous for egregious off-road, the gauge of the car was made a couple of inches wider.


World Automotive Revolution

A lot has been written about the meaning and role of Tin Lizzie in the motorization of mankind. But in 1908, not even Henry Ford knew that she was destined to become a legendary car. Ford constantly sought to increase labor productivity and reduce the time to build one car. A revolutionary breakthrough came with the introduction of the world's first assembly line at Ford's new Highland Park plant in 1913. The idea for its creation came to the head of Ford engineer William Klann, who once visited a slaughterhouse in Detroit. Its work was organized according to the type of line with sequential execution of operations at stationary technological posts. At the end of the line, the carcass turned out to be completely processed and entered the finished product warehouse. In fact, it was not an assembly line, but a disassembly line. But the idea of ​​applying this assembly principle to the automotive industry proved to be revolutionary.

Of course, the assembly line method itself, which increased productivity at the Ford plant several times over, was not the only factor that caused the automobile boom in America. Ford was the first industrial magnate to decide to raise the wages of his workers to $5 a day. At the time, that was a lot of money. They made it possible to maintain a family in abundance and satiety and save for buying a house or a car. Sly Ford paid his workers money, which soon returned to him in the form of payment for Tin Lizzie! After that, in America, a process of rising wages in all industry began. The population began to get richer, and the number potential buyers grew from a few hundred thousand to several million people. The most affordable offer on the market was exactly Tin Lizzy, which became cheaper every year of its production. The growth of the car fleet has brought America to a new level of development. The rapid growth of the service industry and the production of spare parts, metallurgy and the chemical industry began. Anyway, the appearance available car and five bucks a day were the main reasons technological progress civilizations in the twentieth century.

Ford Model T. Model 1908. Price $850 when shipped from the factory

Engine. Four-cylinder in-line with a removable block head and side valves. Displacement 2896 cc The compression ratio is 4.5:1. Power 22 hp
Ignition. Magneto generator designed by Ford, driven directly from the engine shaft. Spark plug.
Transmission. planetary box hardened vanadium steel gears with oil sump Ford design. Driveshaft with Ford design gearbox. Simple bevel gear in oil bath and sealed vanadium steel housing.
Brakes. Ring brake on the transmission shaft, drum brake in the rear hubs.
Dimensions. Wheelbase 2540 mm, track width 1422 mm (for the southern states - 1524 mm).

The Selden case

In 1879, a certain George Selden, a lawyer from Rochester, filed a patent application for a mechanical four-wheeled vehicle with a gasoline engine. The Office was in disarray and the application was simply lost. It was discovered only by chance in 1894, and a year later it was satisfied. The funny thing is that by this time cars were already plowing the roads of America with might and main, and Selden himself had long forgotten about his application.


Nostalgic concept car of our days.

Delighted, Selden realized that he could make a lot of money on this and, with the support of some New York financiers, he organized the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers of America. Independent entrepreneurs who built cars, under the threat of lawsuits, were forced to join it and pay membership fees in the amount of 1.25% of gross annual sales. In 1899, more than 2,500 cars were produced annually in America, and the number of small companies reached 400! Selden and his associates were clipping coupons from the growing car market.


Henry Ford, in 1903, when the Ford Motor Company was founded, also applied to join the Association. But he soon recalled him due to the fact that the management tried to start dictating prices for him, at which he would have to sell cars. The independent and stubborn Ford, of course, refused. The association decided to show Ford a lesson, and filed a lawsuit against him for patent infringement. On the pages of the central newspapers, a serious skirmish broke out with mutual accusations of illegal actions. The case came to court only six years later, when the first few thousand Tin Lizzies were already plowing the American impassability. A federal court upheld Selden's patent. But Ford in any business always went to the end. The Association failed to break Ford's grated roll. Lawyers for the Ford Motor Company filed an appeal with the United States Supreme Court.

In 1911, a higher court partially overturned the earlier decision. The final verdict confirmed the legitimacy of Selden's claims, but only in relation to those cars that were made according to the drawings of the original 1879 patent. There were no such things in nature! The Association lost the battle outright. Ford won, freeing itself from the dictates of the Association, and, at the same time, freed the entire American auto industry from tribute. He spent a lot of money on litigation, but in the end he returned everything with a vengeance. The Selden case turned out to be the best advertisement for the Ford Motor Company that one could think of. Ford and his cars have become world famous.

Imagine that you have to walk five kilometers to school and back every day, that a shopping trip to the nearest city is a whole event in your life. When Henry Ford built his first car, the Tin Lizzie, millions of people were able to buy a cheap and reliable car.

(1863-1947) invented the conveyor. He turned the automotive industry into the leading branch of the world industry.

Henry Ford was in his early twenties when, in 1885, German engineer Karl Benz created the world's first gasoline-powered car. The car had three wheels, was slow, uncomfortable, difficult to drive. Who would have guessed that he would give rise to a powerful automotive industry that will change the face of our civilization?

Thirst for the new

When word got out about Benz's invention, Ford was working as a mechanic in Detroit. More and more new information about the work of Benz and his competitors appeared in the press. Ford was so interested in these publications that he soon set about building his own gasoline engine, and then in 1896 assembled a complete car. The car had four wheels from a bicycle; Ford named it "The Quadricycle".

In 1903, having already gained experience (he worked for several years at an automobile plant in Detroit), Ford founded his own company, Ford Motor.

public car

Ford turned out to be not only a brilliant engineer, but also a talented businessman. He noticed that most car manufacturers are targeting the rich, who need a car for fun. They preferred expensive and high-speed models. Ford was able to look into the future and understand that soon many families will want to buy a car. It should be relatively inexpensive, easy to operate and repair, and not require a lot of fuel. Ford decided to produce cars for ordinary people, for those who today are called "mass consumers".

There were other automakers who made cars for the poor, such as Russell Olds, who made the famous "Oldsmobiles". But Ford found its customers - millions of simple American farmers like his father.

iron workhorse

These people needed reliable workhorse, which would help them do a lot of work: look after the cattle grazing on a remote pasture; deliver grain to the market; pick up mail go to the nearest city for shopping and take the family to visit the neighbors.

A simple farmer does not need luxury speed car. He needs a reliable, easy-to-maintain car so that he can easily fix the breakdown. And besides, the price should not be too high. Henry Ford set himself the goal - to make a car that meets all these requirements.

The first car of the Ford Motor Company was the Model A, which appeared in 1903. Others followed. Ford constantly improved the design of their cars until they reached the goal.


Ford's Highland Park factory, which opened in 1906.

In 1906 the company moved to a new building. Here it was possible to arrange the production of the car that Henry Ford designed. On October 1, 1908, the plant began production of a new car. It was a Ford Model T.

Don't miss out on success

The first " T models cost $850. It wasn't cheap, but the car was more powerful, more economical, easier to maintain, and more versatile than other cars for the same price.

Orders poured in new car, but the production did not have time to cope with them. The car was a success, and Ford did not have the opportunity to satisfy all applications. To deal with the situation, Ford announced in 1909 that his factory would switch entirely to "Model T" production, and that the buyer could paint the black car any color he wanted.

Facts and events

  • In 1922, for the first time, more than a million "Model Ts" were produced in a year.
  • A total of 15,007,033 Model Ts were produced, not counting the millions of spare parts needed to service these machines.
  • The record for the production of cars of one model - 15,007,033 pieces - lasted until 1972, when it was beaten by the Beetle model of the Volkswagen company.
  • Production methods pioneered by Ford were adopted in Europe after

after Giovanni Angelini of the Italian company Fiat visited Highland Park in 1912. Shortly after his return to Italy, Fiat set out to build a new factory near Turin.

But, despite these innovations, the company could not make as many cars as required. Ford was sorry to miss out on the profits. He understood that people who couldn't buy a Model T would buy a car from another company. After all, many manufacturers, large and small, sought to break into the market. He also realized that if he could increase the number of cars produced, then it would be possible to reduce the price and buyers would increase.

Mass production

To solve the problems facing him, Ford began to improve the technology mass production. Previously, the same items, such as watches or shoes, were made from start to finish by one person. All parts were made separately, and therefore the finished products differed little from each other.

In mass production, finished products are assembled from prefabricated identical parts, each of which can be replaced by another. This not only speeds up production, but also simplifies repairs: spare parts are always at hand.


The figure shows the initial stage conveyor production at the Ford plant. The entire process of manufacturing a car is divided into sequential operations. This simplifies and speeds up assembly. The body of the car with already fixed on it back seat slides down an inclined plane down to the running gear of the car moving along the conveyor. Workers standing on the sides set the body in place, and the conveyor delivers the car to the next stage of assembly.


"ModelT" 1913, assembled on the conveyor.

Mass production has been known for a long time. This method has been used since 1800 in the manufacture of guns and pistols, and then watches, sewing and printing machines. In 1902, Russell Olds began to assemble his "Oldsmobiles" according to this principle.

Ford was the first to use a moving conveyor belt to assemble cars. At first, the body of the car was put on the conveyor, then the conveyor transported it to the next assembly stage, where wheels were attached to it, and so on. As the car moved along the assembly line, more and more new parts were added to it. Each worker stood in his place and performed one single operation. The necessary parts were delivered directly to the workplace. After the introduction of the assembly line in 1913, the production of cars increased sharply, but new difficulties lay ahead of Ford.

Trouble on the assembly line

The workers at the Ford plant did not like the assembly line. Now they did double more cars and earn the same amount of money. Soon they began to leave the factory: boring, monotonous work on the assembly line is very tiring. There were not enough workers - the number of cars produced decreased.

Then Ford developed a pay system in which workers were interested in the profits of the company. The more cars they made, the more money they got. At new system workers' wages doubled. Ford again found a way out of a difficult situation.

Since then " model T became more and more popular. By 1916, 2,000 cars were being produced every day, and the price had fallen to $360. In 1922, Ford overcame the million milestone - more than 1 million 200 thousand cars were produced. The "Model T" was discontinued only in 1927. By that time, there were already more than 15 million of these cars on the roads. Even in the 50s in America, you could still find "model T". Strong and reliable, they served their masters to the end.

Ford T. History of creation

Definition

    Ford T(also known as "Tin Lizzy") - a car produced by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1927. It is regarded as the first affordable car, built in millions, that "put America on wheels". This was made possible, among other things, by Ford's innovations, such as the use of an assembly line instead of individual manual processing, as well as the concept of paying high wages and minimizing the cost of a car. First car model T was built on September 27, 1908 at the Pickett factory in Detroit, Michigan.

Ford T history

1913 Ford Model T Touring fitted with an electric starter instead of a crank and electric headlights instead of acetylene gas

The Ford Model T car was designed by Childe Harold Wills and Hungarian immigrants, Joseph A. Galamb and Eugene Farkas

    The Ford T (also known as the Lizzie Tin) was a car produced by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1927. It is regarded as the first affordable car, built in millions, that "put America on wheels". This was made possible, among other things, by Ford's innovations, such as the use of an assembly line instead of individual manual processing, as well as the concept of paying high wages and minimizing the cost of a car. The first Model T was built on September 27, 1908 at the Pickett Factory in Detroit, Michigan. Contrary to popular belief, the Model T was not a small and primitive car: despite its truly simplified design for mass production, it was not inferior to other cars of its time in comfort, space and equipment, and belonged to the modern middle class in size. A specific American school of car design originates from the Ford T. In Europe, cars comparable in size to the Ford T subsequently formed only a small part of the fleet, while in the USA this class of cars is still the main one. The car was equipped with a four-cylinder engine with a working volume of 2.9 liters, a two-stage planetary gearbox. The design features of the car also included such innovations as a separate cylinder head and pedal shifting. When the "Model T" was introduced, most cars in the US cost between $1,100 and $1,700. Ford's "T" at first cost only 825-850 dollars, that is, almost 2 times cheaper than the average car and almost a third lower than the cost of the cheapest in 1908-1910. And for those years, $ 400 difference is a lot of money. The average worker in the United States then received $ 100 a month. In 1916-1917, 785,432 cars were sold at a price reduced to $350. Model "T" was also the first "world" car, that is, produced in parallel in many countries of the world. In particular, there were Ford branches in Germany, Great Britain, France, Australia and other countries. In total, 15 million 175 thousand 868 Ford models of the T model were produced.

Characteristics of the car Ford T

    The Ford Model T car was designed by Childe Harold Wills and Hungarian immigrants, Joseph A. Galamb and Eugene Farkas. Henry Love, CJ Smith, Gus Degner and Peter D. Martin were also part of the team. Model T production began in the third quarter of 1908. Collectors today sometimes categorize Model T's by creation years, and refer to them as "Model Years". The reverse classification scheme, the concept of model years as we understand it today, did not exist at that time. The nominal model designation is "Model T", although the design has changed over the course of two decades.

Ford T engine

    The Model T had a 177 cubic inch front fascia inline-four wholly flat engine for top speed 40-45 mph (64-72 km/h). Model T with valve engine was the first in the world with a detachable head, making service like valve work easier. According to the Ford Motor Company, the Model T saved fuel on the order of 13-21 miles per US gallon. The engine can run on gasoline, kerosene, or ethanol. flywheel magneto electric generator who produced high voltage a spark is needed to start combustion. This voltage was timed to one of the four coils of the tramblrr, one for each cylinder. The coil creates a voltage that is directly connected to the spark plugs in the cylinder. The ignition was manually adjusted by spark using a pre-installed lever on the steering column which turned the timer. When electric headlights were introduced in 1915, the magneto was upgraded to power the lighting. In keeping with the goal of maximum reliability and simplicity, the coils and magneto breaker of the ignition system were retained even after the car was equipped with a generator and batteries for electric starting and lighting. Most cars sold after 1919 were equipped with an electric start, which was occupied by small round buttons on the floor. 10 US car gallon fuel tank was mounted on a frame under the front seat, one option was a carburetor (Holly Model G) modified to run on ethyl alcohol to be supplied by a home-grown farmer. Because Ford relied on gravity to feed fuel into the carburetor instead fuel pump, Model T could not climb a steep hill when the fuel level was low. The immediate solution was to climb the steep hills in the opposite direction. In 1926 the fuel tank was moved forward to under the hood on most models. Previously, engine blocks were being produced by the Lakeside Foundry at St. Jean in Detroit. Ford canceled the deal. The first few hundred C models had a water pump, but this was eliminated early in production. Ford opted for a cheaper and more reliable heat-siphon system. Hot water, being less dense, will rise to the top of the engine and up to the top of the radiator, going down to the bottom as it cools and back into the engine. This has been the direction of water flow in most vehicles that still have water pumps, up until the introduction of the transverse radiator design. Many types of water pumps were available as aftermarket accessories.

Ford T design changes

    1913 Ford Model T Touring fitted with an electric starter instead of a hand crank and electric headlights instead of acetylene gas. Many of the first cars were open cars and runabouts, it's cheaper than making covered ones. Until the 1911 US model year - from an open car there was no door opening for the driver. Late models included closed cars(introduced in 1915), sedans, coupes and trucks. The headlights were originally acetylene lamps made of brass, but the car eventually received an electric light after 1910, initially powered by a magneto until the electrical system was upgraded to a battery, alternator, and starter when the lighting power switched to a battery source. The Model T manufacturing system, the epitome of Fordism, is renowned for representing mass-produced systems that were very successful in achieving efficiency, but which could accommodate product design changes with great difficulty and resistance. There were a few big, visible changes throughout the life of the model, but there were many small ones. Most of these were driven by design for technological considerations, but style and new features also played a role. big role. In fact, one of the concerns for the company regarding the design change was T's reputation for not changing and being "already right" which Henry Ford loved and which was a selling point for many customers who made it risky to allow any changes to actually not happened. By 1918, half of all cars in the US were Model T. Ford wrote in his autobiography that he told his management team in 1909 that in the future "Any customer can have cars painted any color, but he wants as long as that models will black." However, during the early years of production from 1908 to 1914, the Model T was not only available in black, but in grey, green, blue and red. Green was available for touring cars. Gray was only available in city cars and red was only available for touring cars. By 1912, all cars were painted dark blue with black fenders. It wasn't until 1914 that the "any color as long as it was black" policy was finally implemented. He often stated that Ford suggested using black from 1914 to 1926 due to the cheap cost and durability of black paint. production model T, more than 30 various kinds black paint have been used on various parts of the car. They were formulated to satisfy various ways applying paint to different parts, and there were different drying, depending on the part, paint and drying method.

Description Ford T

Ford T (also known as "Tin Lizzy") - a car produced by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1927

    The Lizzie Tin, like its Model N predecessor, was built on a heavy load-bearing steel frame with two stringers and 1/8-inch thick steel sheet cross members. It was made for Ford at the Michigan Stamping Company. A 2.9-liter Henry Ford engine was attached to the frame along with a primitive but reliable two-stage transmission, leaf spring suspension and a body. There were many types of bodywork in those years, and automakers called them each in their own way. Tin Lizzie was originally designed with six body styles - Touring, Runabout, Landaulet, Town Car and Coupe, but in 1908 the Model T was produced only in Touring and Landaulet variants. Bodies were ordered from third-party manufacturers in Detroit. The upholstery of open modifications was made of thick natural black leather of a special "diamond" dressing. A cloth top, which was made from canvas dyed grey, dark red or dark green, was an optional extra. The closed Lizzies had only the seats trimmed in black leather, and the inner upholstery of the doors was made of leatherette. Contrary to popular belief that the Model T was painted only black, in fact, this practice did not begin until 1913 with the start of the assembly line. And before 1913, there were no black "Lizzie Tins" at all! Buyers could choose grey, dark green or dark red body colors. The windshield was not included as standard and had to be ordered separately. At the same time, a transverse steel beam was installed in the wooden partition between the engine compartment and the passenger compartment, reinforced with bronze strips for rigidity. Otherwise, the glass simply burst on potholes, because the body of the Model T began to creak within a few days after purchase. The interior equipment was, to put it mildly, Spartan. A large wooden steering wheel with a diameter of 36 cm with bronze spokes was tightly screwed to the end of the steering shaft. Beneath it on the right were two short bronze levers with hard rubber knobs. One lever controlled the fuel supply, and the other controlled the ignition. The first two thousand copies of the car on the floor had two pedals and two large levers to the left of the driver's seat, then there were three pedals, and only one lever. The left pedal included the first gear, the right - the rear wheel brake and reverse. The levers were responsible for reverse, the inclusion of the transmission brake and neutral gear. The driving process was rather complicated, and it took quite a long time to learn how to drive Tin Lizzie. In the instructions of those years, the driver for an emergency stop was recommended to press both pedals simultaneously and pull the transmission brake lever back to the stop. The car stopped dead in its tracks. The speedometer was not part of the Model T's list of standard equipment; Ford Motor Company purchased these instruments in Detroit from Stewart, National and Jones.

What's in the name Ford T?

    Connoisseurs say that if this car was created not by Ford, but by someone else, then time would have long since erased any memories of it. However, to make a Model T, you have to be born Henry Ford. Why "Tin Lizzy"? On this score, historians of the auto industry do not give a clear answer. But there are two main versions. Americans often prefer nicknames to real names. At the beginning of the last century, the villagers usually called their workhorses by the female name Lizzy. Well, the word "tin" does not need additional interpretation. Iron horse, in general. The second version explains things a little differently. Lizzy - so the Irish called stubborn and wayward beauties. And although it’s hard to call the Model T a beauty, if you like her, then such an explanation will do. Very often, the Americans called the Model T "Flivver", and in total this legendary car had about twenty different nicknames. But in history she remained Tin Lizzy. Practical Ford, in principle, did not create anything new. After all, the main components of market success were well known to him - a strong reliable frame and transmission made of vanadium steel, a proven 2.9-liter engine and an affordable price. The rest is trifles. The more buyers who can scrape together the money for a car that doesn't break down, the better. Cars, according to Ford, were supposed to be something like a hamburger. Cheap and satisfying, even if you subsequently get gastritis. When automotive historians write about the Model T, they praise its reliability in every possible way. You can't argue with that. The car was just unkillable. At the same time, not a word is said about the complete lack of comfort, poor design and inconvenient control system. Tin Lizzie was included in Time Magazine's famous list of the 50 worst cars.

Ford T brakes

The Ford T (also known as the Lizzie Tin) was a car produced by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1927. It is regarded as the first affordable car, built in millions, that "put America on wheels"

    Lizzie's braking system is a special topic. One of the most difficult moments in driving a car was the process of braking. Pushing the brake pedal and lever to a stop was not easy. The fact is that the Model T had two brakes - a steel transmission bandage that compresses the main shaft controlled by a floor lever, and a drum-type rear brake mechanism in the hub that responds to pressing the right pedal. Brake linings were cast from bronze. They wore out very quickly, and their replacement was very laborious. The Model T suspension, even by the standards of the Bronze Age of automotive industry, was a sample of the primitive. The front and rear wheels were mounted on simple movable spindles riveted to a transverse steel leaf spring. The wheels were turned using unregulated rods, one end attached to the steering column hinge, and the other to the spindle housing. It is interesting that in this unpretentious design there was not a single lubricated unit. Ford rightly reasoned that vanadium steel would not wear out soon, and the lubrication system would increase the cost of the car. The tires of the car were rubber, with a tube inside. The hub and long spokes were made of special "artillery" wood, reinforced in loaded places with bronze bandages. Paradoxically, Ford, a fanatic of simplification and unification, used different wheel sizes for the front and rear axles in the Model T! Owners had to carry with them not one, but two spares. However, at Ford's Canadian plant in Walkerville, the Tin Lizzies were produced with the same wheels. For the southern states of the United States, famous for egregious off-road, the gauge of the car was made a couple of inches wider.

Mass production Ford T

    The knowledge and skills needed by the workers in the factory have been reduced to 84 areas. When introduced, T used methods typical of the time, assembly by hand, and production was small. Ford's factory pickett could not keep up with demand for the Model T, and only 11 cars were built during the first full month of production. More and more more cars were used to reduce complexity in 84 specific areas. As a result, Ford vehicles rolled off the line at three-minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, reducing production time by eight times while using less work force. By 1914, the assembly process for the Model T was so streamlined it took only 93 minutes to assemble the car. That same year, Ford produced more cars than all other automakers combined. The Model T was a big commercial success, and by the time Henry made his 10 millionth car, 50 percent of all cars in the world were Fords. It was so successful that Ford bought advertising between 1917 and 1923; more than 15 million Model Zs were manufactured, reaching a speed of 9,000 to 10,000 vehicles per day in 1925, or 2 million per year, more than any other model of its time, priced at just $240. Model T production was finally surpassed by the Volkswagen Beetle on February 17, 1972.
    Henry Ford's ideological approach to designing the Model T was one of getting it right and then keeping it the same, in his opinion the Model T was all the machines a man would have, or might ever need. Like other companies offering comfort and style benefits at competitive prices, the Model T has lost market share. The design changes were not as small as public perception, but the idea of ​​an unchanged model was retained. Eventually, on May 26, 1927, the Ford Motor Company ceased production and began the retooling needed to produce the models. Model T engines continued to be produced until 4 August 1941. Nearly 170,000 were built after car production stopped, as engine replacements were required to service already produced cars. The Model T used some advanced technology, such as its use of vanadium alloy steel. Its durability was phenomenal, and many C. models and their parts remain in working condition almost a century later. Although Henry Ford resisted certain types of change, he always advocated the advancement of structural materials, and often also engineering and industrial construction. In 2002, Ford built the last batch of six Z models as part of the 2003 centenary celebration. These cars were assembled from the rest of the new components and other parts made from original drawings. The last of the six was used for promotional purposes in the UK. A standard 1909 4-seater open Tourer costing $850 (equivalent to $21,987 today). In 1913 the price dropped to $550 (equivalent to $12,933 today), and $440 in 1915 (equivalent to $10,108 today). Sales were 69,762 in 1911, 170,211 in 1912, 202,667 in 1913, 308,162 in 1914. And 501,462 in 1915. In 1914, an assembly line worker can buy a Model T with four months' pay. By 1920, the price had dropped to $260 due to improvements in line assembly technology and volume.

    The car scored 742 points in the "Car of the Century" competition and took first place.
    - In the work of Aldous Huxley "O wonderful new world» The chronology of the world of the future is from the creation of the Ford T.
    Included in the top ten cars that changed the world according to Forbes magazine, as the first mass-produced car available to the middle class in the world.
    - Ford Model T was the first car in Mongolia. It was presented to the ruler of the country, the "Living Buddha" Bogdo Gegen VIII, by the Swedish missionary Franz Larson, who writes:
    “... When I got him the first car ever seen in Urga - Ford - he connected the electrical wiring to the car body, and called the higher lamas and nobility for tea. After tea, he showed them the car, and invited the guests to feel the polish of its wings. The first person to touch the machine recoiled as if burned. The others laughed at his timidity. Then the second brave man extended his hand - and pulled it back. Even more laughter, egged on by the Buddha. This tea party gave him the greatest pleasure, at which his friends were so shocked that no one expressed a desire to accompany him on a trip in this car - they were all amazed at his ability to sit in it and drive comfortably around the palace.
    - There is a legend that Ford T was painted only black. In fact, such a statement is applicable, and then with reservations, only to cars manufactured in 1914-1926. Before and after that, serial Fords were available in a variety of colors. The shift to exclusively black bodies in 1914 was prompted by the start of assembly line assembly of the car, which left no time to dry any of the dyes in use at the time, with the exception of "Japanese Black". While paints and varnishes common at the time could dry up to two weeks, "Japanese black" dried in 48 hours. It should be noted, however, that such a policy was not an invention of Ford - for exactly the same reasons as Ford, at the same time it was adhered to by the majority in the slightest degree. major manufacturers cars. As a rule, the base color was black, while the rest were available only on special order. With the development of chemistry, it became possible to obtain quick-drying enamels of any color. In 1925, General Motors offered its customers a bright blue Duco nitrocellulose enamel painted by DuPont. Ford followed suit the following year. However, fenders, footplates and other chassis parts on mass-produced cars were usually made in black for a long time to simplify assembly (the body was assembled in a separate production area and mounted on an already finished chassis - so the need to select the chassis and body of the same color would greatly slow down the assembly - which is why most non-black cars produced in the 1920s - the first half of the 30s had a characteristic two-tone color with a black bottom).

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Today, many cars of various makes and models drive on the roads, but at the beginning of the century, everything was different. In the 1920s, every second car in the US was a Model T, and that, every second car in the US, accounted for 90% of the total. cars in the world. A huge contribution to the motorization of the United States of America was made by Henry Ford, a man who, as you know, not only introduced the assembly line to automotive production but also put the whole world on wheels. Ford's first car was by no means a Model T, it was a compact self-propelled "wagon" in which there was not even a steering wheel - in its traditional form. Interestingly, in order to get this "miracle" out of the barn, it was necessary to make an embrasure in the wall, because the dimensions of the car did not allow to leave through the doorway. The first car of Henry Ford was sold for $100, at that time the entrepreneur was 33 years old and he was determined to create cars bearing his name and further. In 1903, the Ford Motor Company was founded, which, by the time the first Model T was released in 1908, had produced about 10 car models, among which were both affordable and expensive cars. Even then, Henry Ford decided for himself that in order to make a big profit, he needed to produce the cheapest, most mass-produced, but at the same time reliable car. Initially, you could buy a Ford T for $850, and this despite the fact that the bulk of the cars of those years were sold for more than $1,500, and in the early 20s, the price of a Ford T was only $300.
On that moment wage an ordinary employee at the Ford enterprise was $ 100 - $ 150 and he could easily buy a car for himself. The Model T is famous for being the first car to be built on a conveyor belt, but the assembly line wasn't actually introduced until 1914, before which Tin Lizzie was assembled the old fashioned way. The conveyor assembly made it possible to create a car from scratch in just 93 minutes - an assembly speed never seen before. Even without the assembly line, 12,000 Model Ts were assembled in the first year of production, but thanks to the assembly line, 15 million cars were created by 1927. It is worth saying that the conveyor assembly gave Henry reason to reproach him for forcing his workers to do terribly monotonous work, and in fact, the first time after the introduction of the conveyor, the staff turnover was very significant, but Henry Ford solved this problem by raising the payment for one hour of work up to $ 5 - a very good salary for a worker at that time. The essence of the nickname "Tin Lizzy" lies in the fact that in the USA of those years, Lizzy was a fairly common nickname among horses, and why "Tin" is clear and without
explanations). Below will focus on one of the most significant cars in the history of mankind. It is hard to imagine how a car created at the dawn of the automotive industry has become so massive. Only . but he appeared much later, when the car was no longer a novelty.

There is a widespread belief that the Model T could only be painted black, but in fact this is not the case. Until 1914, until the Ford T was delivered to the assembly line, the car could be painted in various colors, but with the introduction of conveyor production, it was decided to paint the cars black, but why black? The fact is that the black paint supplied by the Ford Motor Company dried faster than other paints, and given the importance of speed in assembling a car, it sales and, accordingly, profit, the speed of drying of the paint was quite important. Ford T was originally produced in open box, but in 1914 the first closed body appeared. On Ford photo Model T, you can see that the doors of the first closed body are located in the middle, which seems very unusual today. The body of the model T is framed with a wooden frame that is sheathed with metal sheets. Initially wheel disks Ford cars were made of wood, but later they began to be made of metal.

To a modern driver, driving this Ford will seem somewhat complicated. You can start at least with what kind of discovery throttle valve it is not the gas pedal that answers, but the lever to the right of the driver - pay attention to the photo of the Ford Model T in the cabin. To the left of the driver there is another lever - this is the parking brake.
Despite the fact that the throttle in this car is not opened in the traditional way, there are three pedals under the driver's feet. The leftmost is the clutch pedal, in the middle the pedal that should be pressed to engage reverse gear, the rightmost pedal is responsible for the brake. In addition to the middle pedal, the handbrake lever is also involved in the process of changing gears, which activates the parking brake in the extremely rear position, and in the middle position allows you to turn on the first and reverse gear, and in the extreme forward position allows you to turn on the forward gears. With the clutch fully depressed, you can engage first gear, when the clutch is pressed halfway, neutral is engaged, and when the clutch is released, you can engage second gear. Thus, to engage first gear, fully depress the clutch and move the lever to the middle, or extreme forward position. To engage second gear, fully release the clutch and also move the lever to the extreme forward position. Warm air from the engine enters the interior of this car through a hole in the floor. Very interesting that the speedometer for the Model T was an option! Regularly, only an ammeter was installed from the instruments.

Specifications Ford Model T

The Model T was powered by a four-cylinder benzie new engine with a record low compression ratio of 4.5:1. Americans have always loved low compression engines, but these are way too much, even by American standards. With a volume of 2.9 liters, the engine produces a power of 20 hp, which allows you to reach a speed of 72 km per hour. Ford engine receives fuel through a single-chamber carburetor. Unlike some of the very first engines internal combustion, Ford T received a removable engine block head. It is noteworthy that the design of the Ford T engine does not provide for valve adjustment. The gearbox of this "wonder-mobile" is two-stage, drum brakes and only on the rear axle.

Ford Model T price

Buying a restored Ford Model T is unlikely to cost less than $10,000. Ford price T is mainly determined by the degree of originality and the quality of restoration work.

Very few people will be lucky to see the Ford Model T live - it is only possible on car exhibition, but you may have seen this car in the Mafia computer game, where this car is referred to as Bolt.

Ford T

first left hand drive car

If Benz and Daimler are considered the parents of the car, then Henry Ford can rightfully be considered the educator of this main technical device of our time. Indeed, what was the car before him? An expensive technical toy, which, according to the then experts, could never fully replace the horse. Moreover, there was not even a consensus on what type of engine a car should be - steam, gasoline or electric.
But only Ford put an end to this dispute, which lasted the first two decades of the existence of the car. This point has become famous model T .
Henry's Horseless Carriage Firm Ford founded in 1903. In the first years, production was not shaky and not rolled, until the factory Ford rather than come his namesake engineer Henry Wills. Firmly put " Ford"on all four wheels happened to him. The development of this car Wills began in 1907, and in October of the following year the first copy went on sale. The machine, which weighed 1940 pounds (880 kg), was so simple in design that even at that time it was considered primitive. So, there were no water and oil pumps in the car - water circulated in the cooling system due to the temperature difference, and the engine was lubricated by spraying. In order to simplify and reduce the cost of the car, Wills abandoned the valve adjustment mechanism, and even made the wheels non-removable - only the tire could be dismantled. Fuel from a 45-liter cylindrical tank located under the seat entered the carburetor by gravity, since there was also no fuel pump. However, many progressive technical innovations were also used in the design: a removable cylinder head, four cylinders cast in a single block, and a gearbox combined into a common unit with an engine.
This box deserves a special mention. It was planetary - axes and gears, in addition to rotation, performed circular motions. This unusual transmission provided two gears forward and one reverse, and a special pedal located between the clutch and the brake served to engage the reverse gear. However, this does not mean that the car had four pedals - the role of the gas pedal familiar to drivers was performed by a small lever on the right side under the steering column. At the same time, the carburetor damper did not have a spring, and the driver did not have to constantly hold the gas. It was enough to turn the lever at a certain angle, and the supply of gas-air mixture to the engine remained constant until the driver himself changed it.


Electric starters were not yet widespread at that time (they were only on Rolls-Royces in those days), and the car had to be started with a crank. The clutch then was also not dry, and therefore, when starting the car in cold weather, the clutch could not be completely disengaged. Because of this, there were frequent cases when the driver who started the engine was crushed by his own car that had taken off. Generally, start Ford T was a real punishment. Due to the low power of the magneto, the spark was weak, and the engine started on the third or fourth attempt. The first and third cylinders began to work first, and after two or three seconds the second and fourth joined them. Many drivers came up with their own little tricks. So, some of them stopped the cars on the hill and started the car, first releasing the clutch and letting it roll, and then releasing the pedal. With a compression ratio of three and a half units, the engine started up quite quickly in this way. If the driver was going to go not alone, not alone, then he asked his passenger to push Ford T, and the car started quickly from the pusher. Very quickly, the New York, Chicago and Philadelphia boys found for themselves new way earnings. Seeing stopped Ford T, they were waiting for the driver to return and offered him twenty-five cents to push the car.

The engine of the car, the manufacture of which was subcontracted to the Dodge brothers, with a 95.25 mm bore and 101.6 mm stroke, had a displacement of 2893 cm 3 and developed a power of 22.5 liters. With. at 1800 rpm. If you convert fuel consumption from miles per gallon to liters per hundred kilometers, you get a rather small consumption of 11 liters for those times. For comparison, his classmate, ours, who appeared five years later, had a 682 cm 3 smaller working volume and 0.4 units greater degree compression and the same engine power, spent 16 liters at the same distance. You will say that he spent so much on Russian roads. Yes, but American roads were no better in those years. Moreover, it was precisely the lack of good roads and ... well-developed suburban rail transport that prevented the widespread motorization of America. The whole point is that Ford T weighed less by about 440 kilograms, that is, about one and a half times.
Poor windability was not the only drawback of the Lizi, as the model was called. T then Americans. The absence of a fuel pump led to the fact that Ford T deaf on the rise, and small gear ratio V main gear, reduced in pursuit of speed from 3.67, first to 3.0, and then to 2.75, contributed to the fact that Ford T deaf already when he was just trying to drive up the hill.
True, the last drawback was compensated for by the fact that the maximum speed of the Lizi increased from 78 km / h, first to 96, and then to 104. In the same years, it accelerated only to 70 miles per hour, that is, up to 74.669 kilometers.


It is the speed qualities Ford allowed American car finally win in a difficult competition ... with a horse. Now it may seem ridiculous, but the then futurologists were arguing about how many janitors would be needed in a hundred years if there were seven and a half million horses in a city with a population of ten million. Their calculations showed that almost a third of the urban population should be involved in cleaning this amount of manure from the streets.
This historic victory over horse-drawn vehicles took place in June 1909, when Ford T, having won the New York-Seattle Rally, spent 22 days, 0 hours and 52 minutes on this trip. After that, America believed in the car.
Yes, indeed, Ford often broke down. But its advantage turned out to be that it could be quickly repaired. And it was possible to quickly repair it because the standardization of parts was first used on this car. Now it sounds strange, but then the part from one Packard, Studebaker or Oldsmobile did not fit another car of the same make, model and modification. Every detail was specially machined and adjusted on site. And only with the advent of "Lizi" did the concept of spare parts appear. And in August 1913, "Lizi" made a new revolution, for the first time standing on the conveyor. The idea of ​​conveyor production was put forward by engineer Avery, a specialist in the field of equipment and machine tools. Together with his partner. Klann, he came to the conclusion that "assembly on the go" will help to significantly speed up and reduce the cost of car production. Ford quickly realized what huge profits the proposal of the two engineers promised, and supported him.

Ford TT - a cargo version of the Ford T
All these innovations led to the fact that Lizi not only conquered America, but also chopped off a significant part of the European market. Many Fords were delivered to Russia and the USSR, and on one of these cars, having taken a sip of moonshine for courage, the famous commander of the Civil War, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, famously dissected.

The price of the model has been declining over time. If in 1909 Ford T cost $850, then in 1913 its price dropped to $550, in 1915 to $440, and by the end of production Ford T sold for $260.
Release Ford T continued until October 1927. Over the years, 15007003 cars were produced. However, the model T has not gone into oblivion. Based on it, a model was created, the cargo modification of which later turned into our famous .
Many Ford T continued to be used for many years after the cessation of their production, and the model was in service with the US Army until 1937. Therefore, the engine for this model continued to be produced until August 4, 1941.

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The history of this car began on the eve of the US entry into World War II, when the need for the American army for off-road trucks for transporting troops and towing guns increased. At the end of 1940, the army decided to place an order for three-axle trucks with a carrying capacity of 2.5 tons at "General Motors". On the basis of the T 16 Special truck produced in 1938, produced for the French army, the corporation developed the GMC AFWX model, later nicknamed Jimmy. The alteration consisted in lengthening the base and adding a third axle.

Many of you remember the American detective series that was shown on various TV channels in last years. His hero is an LAPD lieutenant in a crumpled raincoat and an equally crumpled face. At first glance, Lieutenant Flip Colombo is a clumsy simpleton with awkward manners and gait. To match the clumsy appearance, the detective was also matched with an outwardly clumsy car, the brand of which even connoisseurs of automotive history find it difficult to determine.

The rally at the Michelson plant came to an end. Lenin stepped down from the podium and, bowing his head forward, walked with long strides towards the exit of the grenade shop. After walking nine fathoms, accompanied by a crowd, he approached a Rolls-Royce waiting for him in the yard. Lenin only had time to reply that by his recent decree he abolished looting. At that moment, shots rang out. Two bullets hit Lenin: one bullet, entering over the left shoulder blade, penetrated the chest cavity, damaged the upper lobe of the lung, causing a hemorrhage in the pleura and stuck in ...


By October 1, 1931, the reconstruction of the plant was completed. AMO was renamed the Stalin Plant, and trucks began to be assembled from domestic components. For the ZiS-5, as the truck began to be called, a new engine was made. On AMO-3, as well as on its American prototype, there was an in-line six-cylinder Hercules engine with a power of 60 hp. at 2000 rpm. With a cylinder diameter of 3.75 inches (95.25 mm) and a piston stroke of 4.5 inches (114.3 mm), the displacement was 4882 cm3.

Many of you no doubt remember the Fantômas film series from the 1960s. Then, in the sixty-fifth, when Fantomas in the second film was very raging, even our special services took the film seriously. In particular, they ordered auto and aircraft designers to create a flying car, such as the on-screen Fantomas had.

P The first taxi of the Russian Empire appeared not in St. Petersburg, not in Moscow, not in Kyiv and not in Warsaw. The first taxi appeared in Verny, the capital of the then Semirechensk region of the Turkestan Governor-General. Its owner was a businessman from the now Kyrgyz Tokmak (then most of Kyrgyzstan was part of the Semirechensk region) Babakhan Nurmukhammedbaev, who in 1906 brought to Verny the car of the brand Berlie .

Alpha Romeo Giulietta was chosen by the Jackal not by chance: back in London, looking through car magazines, he found out that of all the Italian-made cars, only Alfa Romeo Giulietta had a powerful steel frame with a deep recess in central rib rigidity.

In the period from 1944 to 1949, Khrushchev drove an American car Cadillac–Fleetwood 75 1939 issue, which became a trophy of the Soviet troops in 1944. It was this car that was ordered for the American consul in Berlin in 1938, and after the US entered the war with Germany, it was confiscated and sent to Hitler's headquarters. werewolf, near Vinnitsa. In the future, until the moment the car fell into the hands of the Soviet military, it was driven by the head of the Fuhrer's personal guard, Hans Rattenhuber.


Back in the same 1916, the then owners of the plant, the Ryabushinsky brothers, chose the Fiat 15 Ter of the 1912 model as the base truck model for the needs of the Imperial Army, which had proven itself well in Libyan off-road conditions during the Italo-Turkish war. The engine was started using crooked starter- crank. Instead of a generator, the ignition spark was generated by a magneto, and a six-volt battery served only to power the headlights. The battery power was not enough even for sound signal, and therefore in the AMO-F-15 it was equipped with a horn.


The car was a cross-country truck with dual tires rear axles. Its length with a 4980 mm wheelbase was 6600 mm, and the width was 2235 mm. The same in-line six-cylinder was installed on the car with carbureted engine water-cooled, which was also installed on the ZiS-5.


In 2010 Ulyanovsk car factory resumed production of the UAZ-469 car of the 1972 model. This car, which inherited the nickname Goat from its predecessor GAZ-69, in its original form was produced in Ulyanovsk for 13 years. In 1985, it was renamed UAZ-3151, equipped with vacuum booster brakes and increased engine power, and in 1993 the UAZ was finally equipped with a hardtop body. However, the country needed the cheapest possible UAZ.