Read The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Vintage) Online
Authors: Steven Watts
The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Vintage) (22 page)
This tale, like many others Ford liked to tell, was probably exaggerated in its dramatic details. The centrality of vanadium steel to his manufacturing project, however, was not magnified in the least. This material provided the final, crucial piece of the production puzzle of how to construct a “universal car” that would combine light weight, durability, and a low price tag to appeal to a mass audience of consumers. “The vanadium steel disposed of much of the weight,” Ford explained years later. “The other requisites of a universal car I had already worked out and many of them were in practice.” This list was imposing in its demanding simplicity—quality materials, low price tag, uncomplicated mechanical operation, sufficient power, reliability, adequate control, inexpensive operating costs—and it found a focus in a new car model.
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The first sign of Ford's new project came in late 1906. One morning he asked Charles Sorensen, supervisor of the pattern department and assistant production manager at the Piquette Avenue factory, to come along as they walked up to the north end of the third floor, which had a small space unoccupied by machinery or workmen. “Charlie, I'd like to have a room built in right here,” Ford said. “You put up a wall around this and put a door in big enough to run a car in and out and get a good lock on this door…. We're going to start a completely new job.” A short time later, Ford corralled Joseph Galamb, the company's chief design engineer, and told him to install a design board and a blackboard in this special room. He issued a final directive: the room was to be off-limits to everyone except Sorensen, Galamb, and their key assistants.
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In 1907, the small group took its first steps toward bringing to life Henry Ford's dream of a universal car. Design work on various compo-nents—the engine, transmission, chassis, suspension, body—moved along briskly as Galamb, along with his assistant, Eugene Farkas, put in long hours in the experimental room. Ford, however, stood at the center of the
process. According to Galamb's description, he and Farkas would draw designs on the blackboard while their boss observed intently from a special seat:
Mr. Ford wanted to get a look at everything where he could see from his big rocking chair. He had a rocking chair in there of his mother's. He brought it up for good luck. The chair was a good, comfortable rocking chair and he would sit in it for hours studying the blackboard to see what we were doing and talking to us. He would give instructions when we were drawing on the blackboard…. He was right in there changing things that he didn't like. He followed everybody closely.
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Once designs had been refined and approved by Ford, Sorensen stepped in. Because blueprints were never Ford's strong suit (he preferred the finite to the abstract), he demanded a physical model of the part or component at hand so he could see it, touch it, evaluate it. “Everything they were designing, I would make a model of it and then Mr. Ford would look it over,” Sorensen recalled. The group would spend hours whittling away at the model, calculating its strength, efficiency, and efficacy before finally approving a final design. According to Sorensen, amid this painstaking process of piecing together the right parts for the universal car, Ford's enthusiasm grew steadily. “Almost daily I would hear the same comments from him,” the production supervisor related. “‘Charlie, we are on the right track here. We're going to get a car now that we can make in great volume and get the price way down.’ ”
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For months, Ford, Galamb, and Farkas worked late into the evening, altering and improving their designs. Then development moved into another stage when the small experimental room gained a milling machine, drill press, and lathe. Parts for the new car's chassis were machined, engine components cast outside were assembled, and everything was examined, tested, and modified. Once again, Ford dominated the proceedings. “Mr. Ford spent a lot of time in that department. He was in there every day,” reported the mechanic Charles J. Smith. “Our job was to get the advance designs, the ideas that Mr. Ford and others would bring in to us, and actually put them together and test them. We would machine them all up, even get the castings and everything, and take them and build them in a car, and take the car out and test it.”
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As this process of brainstorming, experimentation, and testing unfolded, the centrality of vanadium steel for Ford's universal car became evident. “Mr. Ford was always for a light car because it could cut rings
around the big cars,” John Wandersee explained, so he demanded that the new Model T be strong and durable in construction, yet lightweight. Vanadium steel proved ideal for this task. The material became essential for the new prototype, although its adoption came about rather differently from the fanciful, dramatic tale of the Palm Beach race often told by Ford.
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The actual story was more mundane. Information, some of it published, had been circulating among engineers for several years about a new kind of heat-treated steel incorporating vanadium; this malleable alloy added tensile strength. When J. Kent Smith, a noted English metallurgist and pioneer in making this material, came to Detroit in 1906, he met with Ford and Harold Wills, and demonstrated the alloy's unique qualities. “Immediately Mr. Ford sensed the great value of this for use in the motor car,” Charles Sorensen noted. “After the first time he saw Mr. Smith, he said to me, ‘Charlie, this means an entirely new design requirement. We can get a better and lighter and cheaper car as a result of it.’ ”
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Wills, the company's chief engineer, was particularly enthusiastic about the possibilities of vanadium steel alloy. He began to oversee its testing, first at various steel mills outside Detroit and then at a new laboratory set up in the Piquette Avenue plant. He planned on hiring a college-trained metallurgist to head the project, but Ford insisted on appointing Wandersee, who had first come to the company as a floor sweeper and then rose through the ranks to become a mechanic and then an engineer. Ford had little use for university graduates, preferring men who proved their value on the basis of talent and achievement. So Wandersee spent several months in training at the United Alloy Steel Laboratory, learned how to manage a lab, and became the company's expert on metallurgy and vanadium steel.
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Ford sang the praises of the new steel alloy in his 1907
Harper's Weekly
article. He claimed that vanadium “imparts qualities to steel which are little less than magical,” creating “a metal of such toughness and tenacity as would successfully resist the ravages of vibration and fatigue.” He claimed that with vanadium steel “the strength of an automobile axle or a crankshaft may be doubled without increasing the dimensions or weight, and the working capacity and shock-resisting qualities of that member in actual usage multiplied many times.” These characteristics were vital to Ford's goal of increased strength and light weight.
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With the finalization of the vanadium-steel components, the time arrived for the last step in the development process: road tests. When new parts were added to the Model T, it was taken out for examination under road conditions. Then the handmade model was returned to the development room at the Piquette Avenue factory, torn down, inspected for wear in engine and body parts, and reassembled for more tests. Ford closely monitored
the proceedings. His office stood next to the experimental room, and he spent hours every day checking on test results and inquiring about specific achievements and problems. On numerous occasions, he tested the Model T prototype himself. “He went out with us many a time,” related one of the mechanics on the team. “Mr. Ford wouldn't let anything go out of the shop unless he was satisfied that it was nearly perfect as you could make it. He wanted it right.”
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After nearly two years of development and testing, the car that emerged from the brain of Henry Ford and the hands of his engineers met the stringent requirements of his “universal car.” The Model T was a utilitarian, inexpensive, lightweight, and durable automobile that offered many attractive features to the buyer. Boxy in its basic design, this open-top vehicle came in one color—Brewster green in the early years, and then black after 1914—and offered a tonneau at extra cost. Weighing in at only twelve hundred pounds, it was propelled by a four-cylinder, 20-horsepower engine that was crank-started. The car could achieve a maximum speed of forty-five miles per hour on a smooth, straight road. Its steering wheel and controls were located on the left side instead of the right, a logical place for them in a country where vehicles drove on the right side of the road (this innovation was adopted by all carmakers within a few years). The engine, transmission, flywheel, and universal joint were all enclosed within one case, which was lubricated by a splash-and-gravity oil system. Unlike earlier automobiles, the Model T featured an engine whose four cylinders were not cast separately but drilled into a solid block covered by a single, detachable cylinder head. A three-point suspension system gave the car great flexibility, and a high clearance offered much forgiveness in navigating rough, rutted American roads.
The Model T presented three pedals to the driver—one for forward motion, one for reverse motion, and a brake. A multiuse hand lever served many functions—releasing the clutch in one position, putting the car into high speed in another, and serving as an emergency brake when pulled completely back. The unique planetary transmission was a vast improvement over earlier systems for gear shifting; an ingenious magneto was incorporated into the flywheel to supply current for the ignition and the lights. The car was simplicity itself in terms of its basic systems, and any driver handy with a screwdriver, pair of pliers, wrench set, and some wire could repair most problems and get the car up and running in the event of breakdown. Perhaps best of all, the modest price for the Model T—the earliest model sold for $850, and the price fell steadily in succeeding years—made it affordable for many consumers.
Aside from its technical features and attractive price, one habit of the Model T caused it to appear almost lifelike to many of its owners. When the car was crank-started, its planetary transmission created a subtle forward movement that warmed many a heart. In the sentimental words of one owner:
…there was always, in the Model T, a certain dull rapport between engine and wheels, and even when the car was in a state known as neutral, it trembled with a deep imperative and tended to inch forward. There was never a moment when the bands were not faintly egging the machine on…. Often, if the emergency brake hadn't been pulled all the way back, the car advanced on you the instant the first explosion occurred and you would hold it back by leaning your weight against it. I can still feel my old Ford nuzzling me at the curb, as though looking for an apple in my pocket.
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Once the prototype was approved by Ford, the Model T went into production, late in 1908. P. E. Martin and his assistant, Charles Sorensen, masterminded a reorganization of the Piquette Avenue plant and its production process as “operation sheets” were prepared, machine requirements were calculated, new equipment was purchased, new tools were designed, and floor layout was improved. Perhaps most important, a stock-control department was established to regulate the flow of parts and maintain steady production. The company hired new workers, till by mid-1909 it employed some twenty-two hundred individuals, a fourfold increase over the previous year. In other words, the “universal car” forced a swift systemization of the Ford Motor Company. As Sorensen later noted, “The Model T just drove us into this planning so that by 1909 we realized what it meant to have an organization.”
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As production of the new automobile began, in late 1908, Ford took to the factory floor to prod and inspire his workers. Kidding with the men, he would shake his head in mock discouragement and declare, “I wonder if we'll get up to number ten.” Company accountant George Brown, many years later, recalled witnessing Ford's performances:
He'd be out there in the factory, watching them and kidding them and telling stories. God! He could get anything out of the men because he just talked and would tell them stories. He'd never say, “I want this done!” He'd say, “I wonder if we can do it. I wonder.” Well, the men would just break their necks to see if they could do
it…. Every time he'd meet somebody, he'd give him a kick in the pants or a punch between the shoulders. He was just like a kid with a new toy.
Ford's efforts were rewarded handsomely. From October 1908 to September 1909, the company manufactured 10,660 cars, the great majority of them Model T's, a total that eclipsed the sixty-four hundred of the year before.
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When advertisements for the Model T first appeared, in the fall of 1908, and brochures on the new car went out to Ford dealers, a bonanza of sales began. Within a few months, the Piquette Avenue factory had been overwhelmed, and on May 1, 1909, the company was forced to declare, “We will not be able to take any further orders for any type of delivery until after August 1st.” This explosion of consumer approval indicated that a connection between Ford and his audience had been established, but its nature was not immediately apparent. What was Henry Ford really aiming for with his “universal car”? And why did ordinary citizens respond with such enthusiasm? The answers to such questions could be found in the social underpinnings of the Model T, which were constructed not of vanadium steel but of the values and aspirations of many Americans in the early twentieth cen-tury.
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