The story of Ford Motor Company’s Model T is the story that launched the American automobile industry--and America’s love affair with the car. When he introduced the Model T in 1908, even an eternal optimist like Henry Ford could not have predicted the far-reaching changes he was setting in motion. One hundred years later, this illustrated history looks back at the beloved Tin Lizzie. The book follows the Model T from design considerations (its ground clearance, for instance, had to allow for the abysmal state of U.S. roadways at the time) to its lasting legacy, and along the way describes the mechanical, manufacturing, and marketing innovations that the car’s production entailed. Author Lindsay Brooke also relates the adventures and misadventures that were part of owning and driving a Model T. He chronicles the changes the car’s unprecedented popularity wrought in the auto industry (including Ford’s introduction of the “$5 day”), and he tracks the Model T through popular culture, from its role in early motorsports to its resurgent popularity in the 1950s and 60s as a platform for T-bucket hot rods. Illustrated throughout with period art and evocative photography, this book celebrates as never before the car that epitomized the American automobile.

Documents Henry Ford's creation.

100 years after the introduction of the Model T, this illustrated history tells the full story of the car that launched the American auto industry.

Henry Ford's Model T forever changed the world. The car made "for the great multitude" (as Ford put it) first debuted in 1908 and proved so affordable and so popular that fifteen million were sold through 1927. The "Tin Lizzie" was the first automobile to be mass-produced on moving assembly lines, and built using interchangeable parts. It proved tough and reliable in everyday use, and cheap enough to spawn the automobile revolution: the car cost $850 in 1909 but amazingly by the 1920s, the price had dropped to a mere $260 due to the perfection of production techniques and economy of scale. Designed by a team that included Childe Harold Willis, Joseph Galamb and Eugene Farkas, the Model T had a front-mounted four-cylinder engine that produced 20 hp and had a top speed of 45 mph. It was a rear-wheel drive vehicle with wooden wheels, and featured a two-speed transmission plus a reverse gear. Although models varied - and many revisions took place over two decades of production - the original version weighed about 1200 pounds. Created in the 1920s and featuring information about the original Model T and the "New Model T" of 1925, this maintenance manual is an invaluable resource. It was originally intended to educate the men tasked with assembling, repairing and maintaining the Model T, and offers a plethora of information about the car, its design and operation. The text includes chapters on how to take apart and put together the car, how to overhaul the engine and transmission, valve grinding and carbon removal, rod bearings, fitting pistons and rings, correcting noisy timing gears, installation of camshaft bearings, cleaning oil lines, oil leaks, transmission band installation, axle overhauls, refurbishing and replacing springs, radiator repair, starting motor overhaul, and more. It also includes troubleshooting and general servicing information. A must have for any Model T owner, this book is also a terrific reference for the docent, historian, or anyone who ever wondered, "how did that work?"