How did the Model T and the assembly line put the world on wheels?
Ford did not invent the car or even the assembly line. He made the car move past the workers instead of the workers around the car.
▶ Start the storyThe Model T and the assembly line put the world on wheels by making a car cheap enough for an ordinary family. Ford's big idea was to stop having workers walk around a stationary car and instead move the car past workers who each did one small job. The moving line began at the Highland Park plant on 7 October 1913, and it cut the time to build a Model T to 93 minutes. Savings from mass production cut the car's price from $780 in 1910 to $290 in 1924. By 1914 a line worker could buy a Model T with about four months' pay.
12.5 h → 1 h 33
Ford did not invent any of this alone. Ransom Olds had built a mass-produced car on an assembly line from 1901. At Ford, the idea is credited to William Klann, who had visited a Chicago slaughterhouse where carcasses moved along a , butchered piece by piece as they passed.
The results were startling. Ford's cars came off the line every three minutes, and in 1914 Ford produced more cars than all other carmakers combined. More than 15 million Model Ts were eventually built.
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Recap
Ford's real trick was to keep the workers still and move the car.
💡 A trick to remember it · Before the line, workers walked to the car; after it, the car walked to the workers.
Surprising fact · The idea at Ford came from watching slaughterhouse carcasses move along a conveyor.
Sources (3)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (16 claims) cites at least one of these.