The First Car!!!

Henry Ford was the son of farmer and borned in Greenfield, Michigan on July 30, 1863. He left school when he was 15 to work on his father's farm but in 1879 he moved to Detroit where he became worker in a machine shop. in the mornings he repairired clocks and watches.

Ford returned to Greenfield after his father gave him 40 acres to start his own farm. He didnt like farming and spent much of the time trying to build a steam road carriage and a farm locomotive. he didnt want to stay there so he returned to Detroit to work as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company.

During this period Ford read an article in the World of Science about how a German engineer builted a internal combustion engine. Ford spent his time trying to build a moror of petrol to a car. His first car, finished in 1896, was built in a little brick in his garden. Driven by a two-cylinder, four-cycle motor and it was mounted on bicycle wheels. Named the Thin Lizzie, the car had no reverse gear or brakes.

in August of 1899, Ford had raised enough money to start his own company. His first group of investors withdrew after Ford had spent $86,000 without producing a car that could be sold. Eventually he produced a car that appeared at the Grosse Pointe Blue Ribbon track at Detroit. Its performance helped him to sell 6,000 $10 dollar shares in his company.

in June of 1903, he found twelve more people that wanted to invest a total of $28,000 in another motor company. Ford began production of the Model A car. The car sold well. in 1907 the profits reached $1,100,000. In 1909 Ford took the decision to manufacture only one type of car, the Model T.

Initially it took 14 hours to assemble a Model T car. By improving his production methods, Ford reduced this to 1 hour and 30 minutes. This put less expensive the cost of each car and enabled Ford to undercut the price of other cars on the market. Between 1908 and 1916 the selling price of the Model T fell from $1,000 to $360

PS: teacher for me this is the best invent of the industrial revolution because think about this, how could we live without cars??...in a way is good because the global warming but in an otherone is bad because we will have to walk to all the parts.

Sarita Castrillon :)