The Ford Model T on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The Ford Motor Company ceased manufacture of the Ford Model T and began to retool plants to make the Ford Model A on this day (May 27) in 1927. The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relatively low price was partly the result of Ford's efficient fabrication, including assembly line production instead of individual handcrafting. The Model T was colloquially known as the "Tin Lizzie," "Leaping Lena" or "flivver".

The Ford Model T was named the most influential car of the 20th century in the 1999 Car of the Century competition, ahead of the BMC Mini, Citroën DS, and Volkswagen Beetle. Ford's Model T was successful not only because it provided inexpensive transportation on a massive scale, but also because the car signified innovation for the rising middle class and became a powerful symbol of the United States' age of modernization. With 15 million sold, it was the most sold car in history before being surpassed by the Volkswagen Beetle in 1972, and still stood eighth on the top-ten list, as of 2012.

By 1918, half of all the cars in the U.S. were Model Ts. In his autobiography, Ford reported that in 1909 he told his management team, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

Edgar Allan Poe - An Exhumation is available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only $1.99 

See a local listing for this book here

The Eccentric Henry Ford on This Day in History

April 7: Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford died on this day in 1947. Before he dabbled in automobiles, Ford repaired watches for his friends, and he made his own tools to do it. He was also the Chief Engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company's main plant in 1893. 

Woodrow Wilson wanted Ford to run for the Senate as a Democrat, and he almost won, without any investment on his behalf. 

If you remember Kingsford charcoal, the name came from Ford. Using wood scraps from his plants, Henry Ford found he could make charcoal briquettes. 

Oh, and the movie Ford vs Ferrari (despite the bad name) was a great movie.

Ford was also somewhat eccentric. "Perhaps the wackiest manifestation of Ford’s vision was building an entire town in the middle of the Amazon, named Fordlandia. The aim? To create a utopia in the jungle (although securing a source of cultivated rubber may have been his more calculated intentions), an 18-hour boat trip up the river to the nearest city. The project was never fully realised, but emphasised the boundless nature of his vision." Source

Ford was a fan of Hitler, and Hitler was a fan of Ford. "According to Deadline Detroit, in a 1931 interview with a Detroit News reporter that took place in Hitler's office, Hitler indicated the portrait of Ford hanging on the wall and said, 'I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration.'" Source

Ford was also a little paranoid and obsessive. "When it came to his employees, Ford was obsessed with ensuring that they were 'model Americans.' Because of his power and wealth, Ford was able to turn this eccentricity into borderline megalomania. The Ford Sociological Department employed 'investigators' who studied and examined the loyalties and personal lives of all his workers. Anyone who Ford didn’t like or approve of was blacklisted, had their wages cut, or were ultimately dismissed if they refused to toe the (slightly paranoid) line." Source

Ford vs Ferrari Trailer

Have you noticed that the new Fords, or any other new car really, still have map lights, though we don't really need them since most cars now have built in GPS?

1966 Ford GT40 Mk I. Awesome SOUND - Starts, Accelerations & Fly Bys

Killed by a Robot on This Day in History

 

Buy on Ebay

This day in history: Robert Williams, a worker at a Ford Motor Company plant, became the first person known to be killed by a robot when a factory robot's arm struck him in the head.

"Williams died instantly in 1979 when the robot's arm slammed him as he was gathering parts in a storage facility, where the robot also retrieved parts. Williams' family was later awarded $10 million in damages. The jury agreed the robot struck him in the head because of a lack of safety measures, including one that would sound an alarm if the robot was near." Source

In 1981, Kenji Urada became Japan’s first person killed by a robot. "Urada was doing some maintenance and repair work on a robot. There was a wire mesh fence surrounding the robot which when unhooked, could have shut down the power. But Kenji went over the safety fence without unhooking it and accidentally turned the robot on. Kenji was trapped by the robot’s hydraulic arm which pinned him against another machine for cutting gears. He was crushed by the robot while other facility workers could not help because they did not know how to operate the machine to stop it." Source

Wanda Holbrook, who was employed as a journeyman maintenance technician at Ventra Ionia LLC in Ionia, Michigan was crushed and killed by a robot while maintaining equipment in 2015.

On March 18, 2018, Elaine Herzberg became the first person killed by a self-driving car. The self-driving Uber car that hit and killed Herzberg did not recognize that people sometimes jaywalk. Herzberg's family settled with Uber out of court. Uber announced that it had relaunched its self-driving cars nine months after the incident.

"Journalist and conspiracy theorist Linda Moulton Howe addressed a crowd at the Conscious Life Expo in Los Angeles in December 2018. Part of her speech has since gone viral on the Internet. Howe says in her talk that, in August 2017, four AI robots killed 29 scientists at a lab in Japan. While many are using this claim to argue about the dangers of artificial intelligence, others don’t think this story is true. Well, Howe’s points may be valid, but the incident in Japan she refers to is not verifiable." Source

Buy: The Mysterious Book of Genesis - Lilith, Enoch & Other Strange Studies: An Anthology on Amazon for only 99 cents

The Soybean Car on This Day in History

 

This day in history: Henry Ford patented a soybean car on this day in 1942, which was 30% lighter than a regular car. The soybean car was a concept car built with agricultural plastic. The New York Times in 1941 states the car body and fenders were made from a strong material derived from soy beans, wheat and corn. One article claims that they were made from a chemical formula that, among many other ingredients, included soy beans, wheat, hemp, flax and ramie; while the man who was instrumental in creating the car, Lowell E. Overly, claims it was "…soybean fiber in a phenolic resin with formaldehyde used in the impregnation" The body was lighter and therefore more fuel efficient than a normal metal body. It was made in Dearborn, Michigan and was introduced to public view on August 13, 1941. It was made, in part, as a hedge against the rationing of steel during World War II. It was designed to run on hemp fuel.

Because of World War II all US automobile production was curtailed considerably, and the plastic car experiment basically came to a halt. By the end of the war the plastic car idea went into oblivion. According to Lowell Overly, the prototype car was destroyed by Bob Gregorie.

Others argue that Ford invested millions of dollars into research to develop the plastic car to no avail. He proclaimed he would "grow automobiles from the soil" — however it never happened, even though he had over 12,000 acres (4,900 ha) of soybeans for experimentation. Some sources even say the Soybean Car wasn't made from soybeans at all — but of phenolic plastic, an extract of coal tar. One newspaper even reports that all of Ford's research only provided whipped cream as a final product.

The Henry Ford Museum gives three reasons for Ford's decision to make a plastic automobile, the plastic car made from soybeans.

Ford was looking to integrate industry with agriculture;

Ford claimed that his plastic made these cars safer than normal metal cars;

Ford wished to make his new plastic material a replacement for the metals used in normal cars. A side benefit would have been easing of the shortage of metal during World War II.

The Ford Edsel Failure on This Day in History

This day in history: The Ford Edsel was cancelled by Ford on this day in 1959. The Edsel, when it was first released almost three years earlier was an immediate ugly disappointment. The car was poorly put together. Many Edsels actually left the assembly lines unfinished. Uninstalled parts were placed in the trunks along with installation instructions for dealership mechanics, some of whom never installed the additional parts at all. Some dealers did not even receive all the parts. 

The Edsel's unique "horsecollar" grille has been frequently ridiculed for resembling a toilet seat and female genitalia. Famous sarcastic descriptions of the Edsel and its famous grille include that it looked like "a Mercury pushing a toilet seat" or "an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon". 

After 3 years the Edsel was discontinued and the company lost $350 million on them.

Ford had other disappointments as well, such as the Ford Pinto, the 1974–78 Ford Mustang II (which Edmunds.com ranked as the 2nd worst car of all time, describing it as "instantly appalling to Mustang lovers") and the 1990-92 Ford Escort MK V (European version).

According to Edmunds.com the Edsel is number 7 on the 100 worst cars of all time list. The other 9 worst cars in the top 10 list are:

(1) 2001 Pontiac Aztek - a car that killed Pontiac.

(2) 1974 Ford Mustang II

(3) 1955 BMW Isetta

(4) 1987 Yugo (Communist Car)

(5) 1971 Chevy Vega

(6) 2003 Saturn Ion

(8) 1982 Cadillac Cimarron

(9) 1957 Trabant (another Communist Car)

(10) 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Diesel

The Street has the 1989 Eagle Premier as the worst car of all time.