![]() ![]() The young Ford quickly found, however, that his prototype needed serious revision. A new company was formed called Detroit Automobile Company to build and market Ford’s improved Quadricycle. During his ventures, he finally sealed backing from one of the most prominent bankers in Detroit, William H. Automobile businesses were rising out of thin air, and disappeared just as suddenly – this was something Ford learned the hard way. All he needed was some financial backing.Įasier said than done, though. It was a compact and simple vehicle, one that was easy to maintain. A year later he unveiled a new model, this time thinking ahead to the production end of the process. The contraption was basically a carriage powered by a motor, but though it looked nice and ran well, its design was inadequate for large scale manufacturing. He would work by himself using pieces of scrap metal he salvaged from anywhere he could find them. After two years of spending nearly every free minute refining his engine, Ford completes his first automobile, the “Quadricycle,” and drives it through the streets of Detroit. By night he would be away at his job, but by day Ford would toil in a workshop in a shed behind his home designing and building a new internal-combustion engine. It all started during the days Ford worked as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. This was an unthinkable scenario only two decades before, but by this time Henry Ford had already changed the world. In 1927, the 15-millionth Model T ceremoniously rolls off the assembly line at Highland Park. By 1914, Ford could claim a 48% share of the automobile market. Four years later the price dropped to $575.00 and sales soared. Over ten thousand were sold in its first year, establishing a new record. Though he didn’t invent the automobile, nor the assembly line per, Henry Ford’s extraordinary vision and entrepreneurial spirit caused a massive paradigm shift with global implications. What was once a good reserved only to the wealthy and affluent, was now widely available to blue-collar Americans. The Model T made its debut in 1908 with a purchase price of $825.00. ![]() The birth of an auto empire Henry Ford on his 1896 Quadricycle, one of two built. Instantly, a wave of excitement overcame him for he envisioned even at that tender age and during those uncertain times that horseless carriages will forever revolutionize transportation. One day in 1885, the twenty-three-year old apprentice machinist Henry Ford came into contact for the first time in his life with the gas-powered internal combustion engine.
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