Ford, Henry

Ford, Henry (1863-1947), American motor car engineer.

Henry Ford produced the first motor car cheap enough for large numbers of people to buy. It was the Model T which he began to make in Detroit in 1908.

People called it the 'Tin Lizzie' and made jokes about it and the way it was made, but by 1928 fifteen million had been sold.

From 1911 it was built in England as well as the United States.

Ford began experimenting with motor cars in 1890. He first designed a petrol engine and then, in 1896, his first motor car.

He founded the Ford motor company in 1903, but the cars he made were expensive because each had to be built on its own.

Then he had an idea for producing cars cheaply. All the parts required were made in large numbers and the cars were put together or assembled bit by bit by different workers as they passed down a long line known as the 'assembly line'.

See Henry Ford My Life and Work - An Autobiography