The End of Model TThe great merit of the 1925 season, as has been said, had been that there was still room enough for everyone to get along. During 1925, however, the capacity of the industry had increased by at least another 1,000,000 cars and at the beginning of 1926 the automobile manufacturer had plant and equipment sufficient for [...]  |
The First Crisis: A Bad YearA boom always reaches its greatest velocity just before it crashes, and in the opening months of 1920 the automobile industry was moving at a high velocity indeed. Ford planned to make 1,000,000 Model T’s. Durant scheduled a 550,000-car output, including 200,000 Buicks, 120,000 Chevrolets, and 100,000 Oaklands. The Oakland schedule required a $3,000,000 construction [...] |
After The WarThe end of hostilities brought no end to the war inflation. There was much discussion of the need (and the opportunity) of feeding starving Europe and rebuilding ruined Europe, although the question of how starved and ruined Europe was going to pay for high priced American goods was not so often discussed. And everyone seemed [...] |
Henry Ford’s DifficultiesWhile the automobile industry was expanding so rapidly and so profitably, Ford and General Motors were going through a period of internal strife and personal difficulties. Ford had two kinds of trouble that which he brought upon himself and that which came to him chiefly from the Dodges. Ford’s self-created problems, which were more spectacular [...] |
The Ford againWhile the widening automobile market and the small capital required to carry on an automobile business were bringing large numbers of new companies into the motorcar field, the Ford Motor Company was getting a great deal more than its share in the expanded market and establishing itself as the unquestioned leader in volume of sales. [...] |
The Ford Motor CompanyThe fourth of the major automobile companies to get under way in the Detroit area was the Ford Motor Company, which was organized in June, 1903. The Ford Company is a good example of the importance of timing. The 1903 Ford was a success from its beginning, yet by 1903 Ford had been working on [...] |
Beginnings in DetroitIn 1900, there were 76,000,000 people in the United States, of whom less than 4,000 owned automobiles. Here was the greatest potential market that any manufacturer could desire. For three hundred years the population of the United States had been increasing. Now, at the beginning of the fourth century of North American civilization, the automobile [...] |
