Henry Ford's Model A

For your listening pleasure, Oscar Ford, "Henry Ford's Model A" (1929)

The Model A

For the past several months, I've been reading through Wheels for the World by Douglas Bentley. I've been wrapped up the legacy of the Model T for most of the reading so far, but this morning I turned the page and bam, a new chapter: "Good-bye, Model T; Hello, Model A."

This seems appropriate, because it's finally warm enough in my garage to mess around with my little piece of that history. The Model T has an elevated place in the pantheon of automobile history. I can't wait to read what Bentley has to share about its progeny.

Spring Is Here!

It is time to dust off the Model A, pull the battery up from the basement (hoping it didn't freeze because I forgot to take it out until January), and see if it won't start. Of course, it's supposed to be in the 30s next week, so I may wait a little longer.

The Model T Makes the 50 Worst List, Really!?

I realize this was written up in 2007, and I am coming at it three years too late, but Time magazine should really do a better job of explaining itself with this one. According to their article "The 50 Worst Cars of All Time," Ford's Model T makes the list because "a century later, the consequences of putting every living soul on gas-powered wheels are piling up."

Dan Neil is kind of known for wanting to be the "bad boy" of automobile journalism. Heck, it's served him well in the past. But reading his stuff sometimes feels like reading movie reviews by some brooding grad student who criticizes everything simply because he doesn't have the imagination to appreciate anything.

This list is a prime example. In this short paragraph on the Model T, problems abound, the least of which is that the Model T itself is not responsible for putting America on wheels: Henry Ford is; James Couzens is; the Dodge brothers are. And that's only if your view of history is so narrow that you only focus on a couple "movers and shakers" and miss the waves of historic change that made the Model T successful. The car itself was nothing more than the vehicle for this change (pun not intended). The writer also seem to ignore the irony that he is blaming the first mass produced marvel for this blight on the world, a blight that he profits from as a "Pulitzer-prize winning automobile critic."

Another problem with the discussion is it seems to again focus on one thing, the negative results of everyone in America owning a car. I agree, the legacy of the automobile is pretty terrible. But can we imagine a world without cars? Is Dan Neil typing away on his laptop if the world turned its back on industrialization in the early 20th century? While I also bemoan the industrialization of agriculture, I know many a family farmer whose fortunes changed with the Ford 8N and its competitors. Tractors that lightened the back-breaking work of working a farm, made possible by the success of the Model T. And this is just one of a million benefits human society has reaped from this revolutionary automobile. (Sheesh, what about the $5 day?!)

Finally, I think Mr. Neil needs to spend less time wandering around the "international car show," and spend a few weekends at Greenfield Village during their Old Car Festival. No one who has taken a look at the Model Ts on display there would call this car a "piece of junk, the Yugo of its day." (Strangely, he fluctuates on his disdain for the Model T. A year later, Mr. Neil told NPR. "It was a wonderful invention, the Model T and the mass-mobility automobile.")

It is misleading to use a list of history's "worst cars" as a platform from which to gripe about the auto industry. And it's very hard to take an "auto critic" seriously who would rather appear to lack the fundamental capacity to appreciate a car for what it is than pass up a chance to criticize an entire industry's impact on the world.

The Era of the Dealership

Ford dealers did a great job of pushing the maintenance side of things, doing all they could to keep Model Ts on the road (and to up-sell wherever they could). Here's a postcard that went out to folks in North Dakota from their dealer in Bottineau.

1937 Ford House Car

Check out this cool Ford House Car. I would love to tool around the Great Lakes in that for a summer!

Ford Legacy

Henry Ford once said, "Repetitive labor — the doing of one thing over and over again and always the same way — is a terrifying prospect to a certain kind of mind. It is terrifying to me. I could not possibly do the same thing day in and day out. But, to other minds, perhaps I might say to the majority of minds, repetitive operations hold no terrors. In fact, to some types of minds, thought is absolutely appalling" (emphasis mine).

This really doesn't speak well of line workers, though of those I've known only a portion could be described as Ford has done here. It seems short-sighted on his part, however, given his thoughts on the matter, to create an industry of mindless drones, especially since Ford went on to become the predominant employer in Michigan for a time, and his industry continues to dominate the state's economy...