Vehicle Description
'ONE AND ONLY' Featured on the cover of VINTAGE Ford Magazine 2013
The Ford Model T (colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie, Leaping
Lena, jitney or flivver) is an automobile produced by Ford Motor
Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally
regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that opened
travel to the common middle-class American; some of this was
because of Ford's efficient fabrication, including assembly line
production instead of individual hand crafting. The Ford Model T
was named the most influential car of the 20th century in the 1999
Car of the Century competition, ahead of the BMC Mini, Citron DS,
and Volkswagen Type 1. Ford's Model T was successful not only
because it provided inexpensive transportation on a massive scale,
but also because the car signified innovation for the rising middle
class and became a powerful symbol of America's age of
modernization. With 16.5 million sold it stands eighth on the top
ten list of most sold cars of all time as of 2012. Although
automobiles had already existed for decades, they were still mostly
scarce, expensive, and unreliable at the Model T's introduction in
1908. Positioned as reliable, easily maintained, mass-market
transportation, it was a runaway success. In a matter of days after
the release, 15,000 orders were placed. The first production Model
T was produced on August 12, 1908 and left the factory on September
27, 1908, at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan.
On May 26, 1927, Henry Ford watched the 15 millionth Model T Ford
roll off the assembly line at his factory in Highland Park,
Michigan. Henry Ford conceived a series of cars between the
founding of the company in 1903 and the introduction the Model T.
Ford named his first car the Model A and proceeded through the
alphabet up through the Model T, twenty models in all. Not all the
models went into production. The production model immediately
before the Model T was the Model S.
