Now I can see people could question if this is true or false. Was Ford lying, or did the writer of the autobiography make it up. But it is much more difficult to prove that Ford did not say it. From my research this autobiography was originally published in 1922. It looks interesting! Perhaps when I retire I will make enough time to read this.The salesmen were insistent on increasing the line. They listened to the 5
per cent., the special customers who could say what they wanted, and
forgot all about the 95 per cent. who just bought without making any
fuss. No business can improve unless it pays the closest possible
attention to complaints and suggestions. If there is any defect in
service then that must be instantly and rigorously investigated, but
when the suggestion is only as to style, one has to make sure whether it
is not merely a personal whim that is being voiced. Salesmen always want
to cater to whims instead of acquiring sufficient knowledge of their
product to be able to explain to the customer with the whim that what
they have will satisfy his every requirement–that is, of course,
provided what they have does satisfy these requirements.
Therefore in 1909 I announced one morning, without any previous warning,
that in the future we were going to build only one model, that the model
was going to be ”Model T,” and that the chassis would be exactly the
same for all cars, and I remarked:
”Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as
it is black.”
I cannot say that any one agreed with me. The selling people could not
of course see the advantages that a single model would bring about in
production.
I am looking forward to comments! Actually I am home sick and feeling a bit contagious, so I would enjoy reading a spirited response;) But for now I will stick with what I seen here in black and white print, unless someone has a good reason for me not to read this.
Matt