MTFCA Forum

Or so Henry Ford seemed to believe. He was nearly right. He came closer to perfecting the automobile in the 1920s than anyone else; it had everything you need, and nothing you don't. There were countless add-on accessories for that.
But there's really nothing perfect, and we all know that he was very reluctant to shut down production of the Model T in 1927. He was forced into the same type of corner a few years later with the Ford Tri-motor, which was supplanted by the much more modern DC airliners. But by that time his ego had grown so large that he barely acknowledged his mistakes.

Self-actualization is a great thing when genius ideas come to fruition, but than it becomes a curse when the ego carries itself to absolution.

I would agree with him. He may have been living more in his own little world by then. I am as I drive model T's 96% of the time and a '65 Ford pickup most of the rest of it. Most owners back in the day didn't drive more than I have in 56 years. My mechanics hours may even outnumber those of some mechanics back then but my skills don't always reflect that.
They seem like the ultimate car unless I get the Buick out.

Greg,

Thanks for your thought provoking post. History is riddled with those whose egos got the best of them.

Below is a link to an article in Road&Track on Fordlandia. I have been thinking about posting the link for a few days but your post sealed the deal.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cultur ... ordlandia/

I don't think Henry Ford realized how much his product had changed the world by the mid 1920's I don't think he ever discarded his philosphy of building tough, low cost, durable cars for Everyman, particularly the dirt road farmer. He also ventured into tractors and other farm machinery. I'd also suppose that by the mi-1920s, and being a very rich and famous man, he was constantly beleagured by fools, shysters, and crackpots of every sort, which I suspect made him leery of people offering new ideas on how to run his business. Let's not forget that he bought and operated the Lincoln Motor Co and managed it very successfully. The T was hardly his only focus. I think he could have continued selling a 4 wheel brake version of the T for another ten years or so, absent the Depression. When you think about it, the Model A is a heavy duty edition of the T. As long as Henry Ford lived, Ford cars remained direct descendants of the Model T. The direct lineage of Ford and Mercury cars up through 1948 is very obvious. It was not until 1949 that Fords departed from the basic Model T layout. "Buggy spring Fords" were a breed apart.

Tets tube rubber doomed Fordlandia.

Well... it says something that when Ford, Edison, and Firestone did their big camping trip in 1916, they rode in Cadillacs.

The T was an exceptional car for 1909, but it did not stay competitive. (Forgive my dates, I'm going off the top of my head here.) T got electric headlights in 1915, after the rest of the industry. T got an electric starter in 1919-1920, again after the rest of the industry. Henry also got rid of everyone who criticized him: the Dodge brothers, C. Harold Wills, William Knudsen, and Ernest Kanzler among others. Had the Model A and the flathead V8 not been great successes--and embraced by the hop up crowd--Ford would have probably been like Majestic radios, a company that seemingly came out of nowhere, was phenomenally successful, and then crashed and disappeared.