On This Day: Ford make first new car after ending Model T production

DECEMBER 2, 1927: Ford unveiled the Model A on this day in 1927 after stopping making the revolutionary Model T after 18 years of production.

The town car, which sold for as little as $385, went on to become a huge success for the U.S. firm that pioneered mass production with its predecessor.

Unlike the Model T, which as the first widely affordable automobile was famously only available in black, the Model A was offered in four different colours.

During its four and a half years of assembly, 4.8million were sold – compared to the 15million Model Ts purchased mostly by America’s burgeoning consumers.

On average, though, almost 250,000 more Model As were sold per year of production than its predecessor, which was quite a feat after the Great Depression began in 1929.

Silent British Pathé footage from 1928 shows right-hand-drive versions being built at Trafford Park, Manchester – one of nine factories around the world to make them.

The models shown being built had small 8hp engines, which were unique to Europe since – unlike in America - cars in this continent were usually taxed on horsepower.

However, this engine made the bulky car slow and sluggish compared to its American counterparts with motors ranging between 14 and 21hp and top speed of 65mph.

For this reason, the Model A was far less of a success in Britain and the Continent than its similar-looking but smaller roadster predecessor.

From this period on, Ford went on to design cars that would be specific to the European, North American and other markets.

Most Model As were built at the company’s headquarters in Dearborn Michigan, a suburb of Detroit that founder Henry Ford had turned into his ideal worker’s town.

The revolutionary American industrialist provided housing and paid his workers more than double the average U.S. wage – starting with $5 a day in 1914 (worth $120 now).

He wanted his employees to earn enough to buy his vehicles – and in doing so encourage other firms to raise wages so that their staff might buy them too.

Before his revolution of getting workers to repeat small tasks on a production line – rather than individually building all of a car – vehicles were the preserve of the rich.

But after he had dramatically raises wages and boosted production, Model As – and his other automobiles – could indeed be bought by his own staff.

Ford’s main car-making rivals –General Motos and Chrysler – followed and, as a result, Detroit became the highest paid city in America and the world.

Ford later inspired the theory of Fordism: the idea that mass production of affordable goods, high incomes and subsequent global consumerism was the key to peace.

However, the manufacturer, who died aged 83 in 1947, was also criticised for racism and anti-Semitism after writing books such as The International Jew.

Ford’s dream of prosperous blue-collar Americans forever funding the country’s continued prosperity would also later turn into a nightmare.

After their 1950s and 1960s production heyday – spurred by post-war boom triggered by continued high military spending –U.S. car making fortunes began to wane.

Foreign competitors – using Ford’s own mass production techniques but lower wages – began to undercut American models.

The soaring oil prices of the 1970s wiped out the market for the gas-guzzling big-engined vehicles that the so-called Big Three concentrated on producing.

During the 1980s and 1990s, bosses successfully lobbied for a weak dollar – to increase the cost of imported rival cars.

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But this only made Ford, GM and Chrysler more uncompetitive and further reduced the quality of their products.

It enabled the Japanese to muscle in on reliable, well-built vehicles and Europeans to corner the market for high-end, stylish cars.

The crisis came to a head with the 2008 Credit Crunch – coupled with once again soaring petrol prices.

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With the view that North American automakers were too big to fail, the U.S. and Canadian governments bailed out GM and Chrysler to the tune of $85billion.

Ford opted not seek public loans and instead sold off assets – including its foreign Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo marks – and dramatically cut staff and pay.

The firm has managed to stave off the worst. It is the fifth-biggest carmaker in the world and its bonds were last year upgraded from junk to investment status.

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But with its industrial base decimated, Detroit has fared far worse.

Its population rapidly shrank and with too few of its remaining people in work, the city couldn’t pay off its bills and became biggest city in America to go bankrupt.