Model T Facts

• The Model T was introduced on Oct. 1, 1908. It had a 20-horsepower, four-cylinder engine, reached a top speed of about 45 miles per hour, got about 13 to 21 miles per gallon of gasoline and weighed 1,200 pounds. It was the ninth of Henry Ford's production cars.
• More than 15,000,000 Model T's were built and sold. A modest ceremony on May 26, 1927, marked the formal end of Model T production.
• The first models were produced at a factory on Piquette Avenue in Detroit. Beginning in 1910, Model T's were built at a new Highland Park (Michigan) plant.
• Henry Ford's initiation of mass production of vehicles on the moving assembly line led to lower car prices and the $5 workday.
• The car was introduced with a price tag of $850. The Model T later sold for as little as $260, without extras, because of production savings Henry Ford passed on to customers.
• Henry Ford called the Model T "the universal car," a low-cost, reliable vehicle that could be maintained easily and could successfully travel the poor roads of the era.
• The Model T came in nine body styles, all on the same chassis.
• "Lizzie" was one of the most popular of the dozens of nicknames for the Model T.
• In 1914, Ford, with 13,000 employees, produced about 300,000 cars while 299 other companies with 66,350 employees produced about 280,000 vehicles.