Ford celebrates 100th anniversary of Model T

Ford Motor Co is marking the 100th anniversary of the Model T, the first low-priced car that introduced motoring to the masses, at a time when Americans are flinching at the cost of filling their petrol tanks and the US automobile industry is struggling with plant closures and redundancies.

But a week-long celebration of the Model T promises to offer some nostalgic balm.

About 900 of the vehicles are expected to be on display in what is being called the largest gathering of Model Ts since they left the factory.

Edsel Ford II, great-great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, attended an opening banquet tonight.

“It is certainly one of the most historically significant cars of the 20th century and maybe the single most important American car,” said John Heitmann, a history professor at the University of Dayton who has lectured on car history and its impact on American life.

Henry Ford realised there was a big market for cars – and not just for the wealthy – and that people would keep buying them, Prof Heitmann said.

“It was kind of the common car for the common person,” he said.

A century later, Ford and other Detroit car manufacturers are struggling to keep up with consumer demands. Buyers are shunning trucks and SUVs for more fuel-efficient models, and high fuel prices and a sluggish US economy are keeping sales low.

All major car manufacturers but Honda reported steep sales declines for June. Ford’s sales tumbled 27.9% from June 2007.

The Model T gathering in Richmond, Indiana, home to the nearby Model T Ford Club of America, aimed to be more than just an antique car show but a reminder of Ford’s groundbreaking automobile.

The first production Model T Ford was assembled in Detroit on October 1, 1908. With the development of the sturdy, low-priced car, Ford made his company the biggest in the industry, according to the Henry Ford Museum.

In a span of 19 years, Ford would build 15 million cars with the Model T engine.

The Model T, nicknamed the “Tin Lizzie,” was probably the most important vehicle in causing social change in America, Prof Heitmann said. It helped transform cities, enabling residents to move farther away from the tram lines and creating the first ring of suburbs, he said.

“The move out of the city began with the Model T and other vehicles, particularly after World War I,” he said.

Prof Heitmann said the Model T also was embraced by farmers and rural Americans.

“It had a very high ground clearance. It was easy to repair. It was so inexpensive that isolation on the American farm came to an end,” he said.

Once rural Americans used the Model T to come to the cities to shop, crossroads stores in the country went out of business and centralised school systems replaced one-room schoolhouses, Prof Heitmann said.

Henry Ford and the Model T also changed the face of the labour force.

Prof Heitmann said Ford increased wages to attract and keep workers at his factories and employed immigrants and minorities.

“That was really important in kind of creating a class of well-to-do workers,” he said.

The popularity of the Model T also found its way into poems, songs and films.