MTFCA Forum

Hello, Randy again. Henry Ford created the Ford Model T for the average person to have a decent form of transport, rather than suffering in the hands of mother nature. Up until the early 20th century, only the upper class had a motor vehicle. The Model T was introduced in 1908 (under the 1909 model year) in Ford's plant in Michigan. From then on, motor vehicles became a staple in everyday human life. But what if, in an alternate timeline, Henry Ford, for whatever reason, never made the Model T? How would our modern world look like? How different would history be if humanity stuck with the horse and buggy?

Thank you

There were several other cars made before the Model T, but were very expensive. I think if Ford had not made the Model T, someone else would have made a low cost car. He just happened to be the first one.
Norm

If no one had made a low-cost car affordable to the masses, I think you would have seen a continuation or expansion of class differences.Those with the freedom to travel and those without. People would still be crammed into cities, limited in their ability to travel by whatever public transportation was available. Conversely, with fewer cars and fewer people clamoring for improved roads, I suspect the system of paved highways would be much slower to develop. Numerous industries that grew with the auto industry might never have taken off with the result that we would live in a very different world today. I suspect the Model T probably had more impact on the direction of history than almost any other event, which in my mind is a good reason to keep our cars running to honor all those people who changed the world.

There were others were working to get inexpensive cars out there that were easily repairable, durable, and reasonably priced. The Buick was another example of a car that could have easily taken the place of Ford's T... Maxwell? You betcha. Huppmobile? Um Hmmm... Franklin could have been a contender... the biggie was people wanted a simple, durable, and (eventually) cheap car. Heck, the Brothers Dodge, who profited greatly from Ford's T (and before) were already thinking along the lines of their own marque, and don't forget the guy with the fench name and bowtie wallpaper, and his "little giant".

If Henry hadn't done it, it may have come (slightly) later, but someone else would have done it. The difference would have been the 2 lever 2 pedal 2 speed would have been in the dustbin of obscurity until someone realized you could replace pedals with hydraulics, or come up with a different automatic transmission car.

I also think that part of what made the T so darned cheap was Henry's use of long obsolete technology. Back in '06-08, tremblor coils were the cats pajamas, and 20 HP motors at 20 mph were pretty awesome compared to old dobbin. By the mid 20's, Ford was still stuck on 20+ year old tech (which I'm sure was cheaper than the newest, greatest thing) and that probably saved him a bundle, so he could build cars for next to nothing and build something like the Rouge on profits.

Where would we be now? I don't know, but my guess is, other than the big blue oval, not much different than we are now.

Someone said once that if the car wasn't invented, by now we would be knee deep in horse apples

New York City in 1909 saw 500 tons of horse manure collected per day. They obviously didn't get it all and one of the worst effects was dried manure dust blowing about. Despite their stinky exhausts, cars were seen as an improvement. You have to wonder what all the out of work manure-shovelers found for employment....politics maybe?

Oldav8tor wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 26, 2020 8:50 pm

You have to wonder what all the out of work manure-shovelers found for employment....politics maybe?

It all makes sense now... imagine the possibilities now that the truth is out there!?!

I know 2 companies that the Model T had a huge effect on:

The Brush Runabout Co.
They were selling their single-cylinder cars for $485, and Ford blew them out of the water with his 4 cylinder car. It basically put them out of business.

Harley-Davidson
They were trying to enter the cheap transport market with their motorcycles. They were anticipating really large sales, until Ford introduced the Model T, and their market evaporated, leaving Harley with just the enthusiast market.

While Ford dominated that era its likely Dodge, Buick and/or Chevy would have filled the gap. Starting with Duryea in 1895, at least 1900 different companies were formed, producing over 3000 makes of American automobiles. World War I (1917-1918) and the Great Depression in the United States (1929-1939) combined to drastically reduce the number of both major and minor producers. AND here they are in alphabetical order and start and end dates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_d ... ted_States. Just within our area in the 1900's there were the Velie Motor Vehicle Co, Root and VanDervoort Engineering (R&V Motors), Deere-Clark Motor Car Co., Midland Motor Car Co., Moline Automobile Co. and Meteor Motor Car Co.. The PACO Mfg. Co. in Peoria IL is just 1-1/2hrs away. You can use this link to find past & presentAutomobile Manufactures by State or name http://www.coachbuilt.com/map/IL.htm

As a group devoted to the Model T we tend to look at the question after the fact. What actually started the "revolution" in which inexpensive, universal mechanical personal transportation would be the goal was the bicycle, beginning in the 1870s. Peruse articles in the earliest editions of "Horseless Age" (est. 1895) and "Motor Age" (est. 1899) you'll find the concept already well established.

Ransom E. Olds was the first to supply that demand with his "Merry Oldsmobile" (1902-06). Of the hundreds of makes that entered the automotive field prior to Model T's debut and concurrent with her development, a healthy number of them were in the same price range.

My opinion is the net result, i.e. "putting the world on wheels" would have been pretty much the same without Ford. What the Model T accomplished was the building of an empire that cemented Ford's position as an industrial giant.

What would have been vastly different without Model T is the shape of the old car hobby these past seventy years. Fond attachment to a "universal" experience with a single model has supported a number of cottage industries that have kept Model Ts on the road for over a century, and resurrected countless more from rust and ashes. Not even the Tin Lizzie's notably muscular competitors (e.g. Dodge and Chevy) can claim that level of devotion and longevity.

Things would have played out pretty much as they did, only with different names and slightly different dates. I think history marches onward and there's little we can do to change it. Had the Wright brothers not flown at Kitty Hawk there were several others ready to go, in fact one or two claimed to have done it before the Wright brothers. Had Hitler never been born, the situation in Europe was ripe for what happened and it would have pretty much happened in the same way under a different name. And on and on.

Wheels first appeared in ancient Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, more than 5,000 years ago. They were originally used by potters to help shape clay. Later, wheels were fitted to carts, which made moving objects around much easier. ... Turning the axle turned the entire wheel, saving both time and energy. We owe it all too Fred

Thanks for posting that, Frank. There's an eerie resemblance between Fred Flintstone's car and the Model T

Kerry wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 26, 2020 7:36 pm

Someone said once that if the car wasn't invented, by now we would be knee deep in horse apples

Well, we do know the Ford sent Horses to pasture. And with no more fast trotters, so no more buggy whips!

Many of the automotive pioneers that are suggested by some, would have done what Henry Ford did, had he not done it, got their knowledge and training by working for Henry Ford. Without Henry Ford’s vision and drive, most, if not all of the automotive pioneers would not have embarked on their own to start their own Companies, much less done what Ford did, which was to perfect the mass production that made low priced automobiles possible by moving the automobiles on an assembly line from station to station from worker to worker where the parts awaited and were installed, instead of several workers bringing the parts to each car and each individual car being built by hand, which is the way it was done before mass production.

It was not the Model T that was inexpensive, but the way it was made, that made it inexpensive. If it had been made the way all cars before mass production were made, it would have been just another expensive, but inferior handmade car. Mass production is what made the low price of the Model T possible. The Model T just happened to be the vehicle in production at the time Ford perfected mass production. It could have just as well been any car, for without mass production, to best utilize labor costs, no car would have been able to achieve the low prices necessary to appeal to the common man. Not to say automotive mass production would not have eventually happened, had Henry Ford not come along, it just would have been delayed and when it was finally developed, it would not have been perfected on a car like the Model T. The car would have probably been much different and most likely, much better. Ford was a genius, but he was a stubborn sentimentalist that refused to allow changes or improvements to be made to his Model T and held onto obsolete technologies even when newer and better technologies were made available. Jim Patrick