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N0KFQ > TODAY 15.07.16 15:06l 53 Lines 2566 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 1187_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Jul 15
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 160715/1357Z 1187@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ6.0.12
1903
Ford Motor Company takes its first order
On this day in 1903, the newly formed Ford Motor Company takes
its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850
two-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat). The
car, produced at Ford's plant on Mack Street (now Mack Avenue) in
Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a week later.
Henry Ford had built his first gasoline-powered vehicle-which he
called the Quadricycle-in a workshop behind his home in 1896,
while working as the chief engineer for the main plant of the
Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. After making two
unsuccessful attempts to start a company to manufacture
automobiles before 1903, Ford gathered a group of 12
stockholders, including himself, to sign the papers necessary to
form the Ford Motor Company in mid-June 1903. As Douglas Brinkley
writes in "Wheels for the World," his history of Ford, one of the
new company's investors, Albert Strelow, owned a wooden factory
building on Mack Avenue that he rented to Ford Motor. In an
assembly room measuring 250 by 50 feet, the first Ford Model A
went into production that summer.
Designed primarily by Ford's assistant C. Harold Wills, the Model
A could accommodate two people side-by-side on a bench; it had no
top, and was painted red. The car's biggest selling point was its
engine, which at two cylinders and eight-horsepower was the most
powerful to be found in a passenger car. It had relatively simple
controls, including two forward gears that the driver operated
with a foot pedal, and could reach speeds of up to 30 miles per
hour (comparable to the car's biggest competition at the time,
the curved-dash Oldsmobile).
Dr. Pfenning's order turned out to be the first of many, from
around the country, launching Ford on its way to profitability.
Within two months, the company had sold 215 Fords, and by the end
of its first year the Mack Avenue plant had turned out some 1,000
cars. Though the company grew quickly in the next several years,
it was the launch of the Model T in 1908 that catapulted Ford to
the top of the automobile industry. The Lizzie's tremendous
popularity kept Ford far ahead of the pack until dwindling sales
led to the end of its production in 1927. That same year, Ford
released the second Model A amid great fanfare; it enjoyed
similar success, though the onset of the Great Depression kept
its sales from equaling those of the Model T.
73 - K.O., n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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