Happy Birthday Henry Ford

Hello & welcome to another edition of the GK Nugget. This time I’m writing about a man who greatly impacted one of the things I am passionate about – Cars. 30^th July marks the 154^th Birth anniversary of Henry Ford, the man credited for starting mass production of automobiles.

Before you start reading, here's a small video teaser with the main points from the post.

While he wasn’t the inventor of the 1^st gasoline propelled automobile (That was Karl Benz in 1886), Henry Ford was instrumental in building the modern assembly line for use in car manufacture.

But the Ford Motor Company (which is still in existence today) was not his 1^st car company. He founded the Detroit Motor Company in the late 1890s, but dissolved it in 1899 because he was not happy with the product. The Henry Ford Company came next, but here again Ford butted heads with investors. He quickly dissolved the company in 1902 and formed the Ford Motor Company in 1903.

He started out his career as an engineer under Thomas Edison. Experimenting with gasoline engines on the side, Ford developed a prototype gasoline powered vehicle (the Quadricycle) in late 1896.

The iconic Model T was launched by the Ford Motor Company in October 1908. The “Tin Lizzie” as it known, was an immediate success, and Ford soon had more orders than the company could satisfy. As a result, he put into practice techniques of mass production that would revolutionise American industry, including the use of large production plants; standardised, interchangeable parts; and the moving assembly line.

With the help of these production lines, he assembled a complete chassis in just 93 minutes. Earlier the same process took 728 minutes.

Looking out for the interests of his workers, in 1914 he increased the daily wage for an eight-hour day for his workers to $5 (equal to $110 in 2011) - up from $2.34 for nine hours. (He also hired African-Americans, women and disabled people long before most other business owners did so).

Even as production went up, demand for the Tin Lizzie remained high, and by 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts.

The cost of Model T in 1908 (the year it was launched) was $950, and in 1927 it was reduced to $290, thanks to his commitment of making the best possible goods at the lowest possible price. This price made the Model T affordable for a larger segment of the population.

Ford's Model T was also successful because it signified innovation for the rising middle class and became a powerful symbol of America's age of modernisation. With 16.5 million sold it stands 8^th on the top 10 list of most sold cars of all time as of 2012.

Henry Ford’s intense commitment to systematically lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system that put dealerships throughout most of North America and in major cities on six continents.

There were several cars produced or prototyped by Henry Ford from the founding of the company in 1903 until the Model T was introduced. Although he started with the Model A, there were not 19 production models (A through T); some were only prototypes.

The Model T had a front-mounted 177-cubic-inch (2.9 Litre) inline four-cylinder engine, having a top speed of 72 km/h. It had a fuel economy of 5.5 to 9 km per litre. Not bad considering a 1.2 Litre engine in a 2017 Ford Figo gives about 18 km to a litre.

Ford left most of his vast wealth to the Ford Foundation and arranged for his family to control the company permanently. (The company went public in 1956 but the Ford family, through special Class B shares, still retains 40 percent voting rights.)

The Model T was available only in the colour black. Henry Ford’s famous (or maybe infamous) quote “you can have it in any color you want, as long as it is black” is still remembered today.

Here are some other truly inspirational quotes by this American industrialist, and inventor:

Don’t find fault, find a remedy.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.

To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success.

Isn’t it amazing (maybe a bit startling also) that so many of these quotes ring true even today. In fact so many of these have been the mantras on which successful businessmen & women of this generation have built their companies.

Henry Ford believed in reincarnation. How shocked would he be if he turned up in 2030 to see his beloved automobile running on electric power and being controlled by a computer?

That’s all on this edition of the GK Nugget. See you next time.