Henry Ford was an innovator and a head of his time.

We all know how he developed the assembly line to produce affordable cars.

He was also instrumental in developing the charcoal briquette that we are familiar with.

I just learned that Henry Ford was trying to develop soy based products back in the 1920s.
He was trying to make plastic body parts out of soy beans. Although he was unsuccessful then, I know that Ford is using bio/organic based items today.

Maybe this is one reason I have been supporting Ford for so many years.

Let the bowtie people say what they want about our Fords, but I know that things are being done with a sense of purpose.

 

Ford was successful with making fenders, *****, etc out of soy-based plastics, but I think the reason it didn't go any farther was due to the higher costs involved.

 

Ford is also heavy into using re-cycled products. I know some of their tail light housings are made from re-cycled plastics, and probably other parts as well.jd

 

There's a famous picture of Henry Ford swinging an axe at the decklid of his personal 1941 Ford Fordor Sedan. The lid was made from soybeans which he grew himself.

The axe bounced off leaving only a slight impression in the lid.

Henry Ford did not invent the automobile assembly line!

Ransom E. Olds did in 1902, using it to assemble his Olds Curved Dash model.

1902 was before there was even a Ford Motor Company.

Well not quite...there was briefly a FoMoCo in 1902, but Ford quarreled with his financial backers and left the company before a single car was built.

The company survives today as America's oldest auto maker.

Huh?

After Ford left, the backers brought in Henry Martyn Leland (formerly of Brown & Sharpe and the Colt Pat'd Firearms Manufacturing Co.) as Prez and Chief Engineer.

Lelands first job was to change the company name, so he named it after the French explorer that founded Detroit: Walter de la Motte Cadillac.

Leland left Cadillac in 1916 and started a new company to manufacture Liberty Aircraft engines for the war effort.

He named his new company after his favorite president. Abraham Lincoln.

In 1921, the Lincoln Motor Car Co. introduced their first car, the Model L.

It was an engineering marvel, but a styling disaster, Lincoln soon went bankrupt.

In 1922 Lincoln went on the auction block. There was only one bidder, Henry Ford, who bought the company for 7 million dollars.

 

Another interesting tidbit about the early days of FoMoCo, the Dodge brothers are largely responsible for the existence of Ford today. They invested the largest chunk of money into Ford at the beginning. The first few Model Ts actually had Dodge running gear in them! You may not like Dodge now, but without them, you wouldn't have Ford either

 

The Dodge Brothers (Horace & John) were among the original investors of Ford Motor Company, founded in 1903.

The principle investor was James Couzens who owned a large coal company that supplied the midwest. His relatives also invested in FoMoCo.

The Dodge Brothers, who owned a large Detroit machine shop, also had a contract with Ford to build Model T engines (the engine was designed by Ford, not Dodge).

When Ford bought them out (circa 1913), they used the money to go into the autobiz. Their car was introduced in 1914.

The Dodge car was the first to have an all steel body, predating GM (who claimed to be the first) by 20 years.

Dodge also built the first factory pickup in 1924, the 3/4 ton Express. Ford built their first factory pickup in 1925.

Many companies offered pickup beds for Model T's before 1925. One of the beds took the place of the "turtleback" used on roadsters, another was used on touring cars.

The touring body was cut off behind the front seat and the pickup bed installed.

btw: Both of the Dodge brothers died in 1920 of Spanish Flu, an epidemic that was sweeping the country.

When the brothers died, the widows turned the company over to the investment banking firm of Kidder-Peabody who ran it into the ground (they did the same thing with the Winchester Repeating Arms Co.).

After years of negotiations, Dodge was sold to Walter P. Chrysler in 1929.

 

Fords strength in pickups probably began in the 1930s. Ford had both a model A car an pickup. If you remember the Waltons TV show they had a model A pickup. An Johnboy on the show had a Model A coupe. Henry was all for simplicity though. Any color as long is its black. Fords famed Model T really got the auto age going. Did you know back in the twenties an thirties over half the autos on road at that time were Fords. Ford had over 50% market share.Autos were a luxury in the early years only the rich had them. Henry said why is that. He got the price down so everybody could afford one. People always say today they want Chevy motors for there race cars. Well back in the thirties when Ford come out with there flathead V 8. Hotrodders wanted those flathead 8s. They sold all kinds off performance parts for it. Thanks to Henry V 8 was the motor off choice for years an years.

 

Henry Ford said: "You can have any color so long as it's black."

But that edict was fazed out after 1924.

Why did Ford say that about the color black?

Why was only the color black used from circa 1913 thru 1924?

 

Wasn't old Henery also an anti-semite and sympathetic to the ****'s?

 

Seems to me I read once that it has something to do with the speed that the paint dried.

 

I'm not sure about Henry Ford. But G.W. Bush's grandfather was one of the big financial people involved with the **** Party.

 

You can thank 30's technology that it's a v8 and not an x8- Original design called for four banks of two cylinders, but the lower plugs kept crapping up.
Ford also specified Ethanol as a fuel-

 

It was black lacquer that dried fast - I think.

 

It was black varnish that dried the quickest.

Before 1924, all vehicles were varnished not painted, because there was no such thing as automotive enamel or lacquer paint.

It took hundreds of people, one entire floor of the Ford assembly plant to prep and varnish bodies and other sheet metal.

The average drying time for one coat of black varnish was 24 hours, longer for other colors and all Fords had two coats of varnish applied.

In 1924, DuPont introduced Duco enamel paint. The first cars to be painted with it were the 1924 Oldsmobiles.

By 1925, almost all the auto makers were using Duco. Nitrocellulose lacquer was introduced around 1927.

Duco and nitrocellulose lacquer were still being used thru the 1950's.

Acrylics took their place beginning around 1958.
----------------------------------------------
Ford's experimental X8 engine still exists, and is on display at the Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village in Dearborn.

Ford introduced the first "low cost" V8 in 1932, but Ford did not invent the engine.

Flathead V8's were introduced in 1915 by Cadillac and Cole.

The first OHV V8 was introduced in the 1949 Cadillac (331 cid). The Olds OHV V8 (303 cid) was introduced one month later.

The Caddy engine was running on test stands in 1936, and the planned introduction was 1942, but the war in Europe changed Cadillac's plans.

Deciding to introduce the engine in 1949 was a marketing ploy. GM knew the first several years after the war ended would be a sellers market. *

So introducing the engine in 1949 would give buyers another reason to buy new cars.

*Vehicle production ended on February 9th 1942, so there were no new cars available until late in 1945.

The War Production Board (WPB) authorized Nash to build taxi-cabs in 1943, these were the only cars produced after 2/9/1942.

The WPB allowed truck manufacturers to resume production late in 1944.

btw: Chromium was in such short supply that during the last month of 1945, thru the first 6 months of 1946, very few cars had chrome bumpers.

Wood painted in body color was used instead. When chrome bumpers finally were produced, the wooden bumpers were replaced free by automakers.

 

That was a lot of interesting tidbits. Thanks gang.