The idea of the motor car as personal transport had pretty much already taken hold of human imagination when on October 1, 1908 the first T Model Fords (right) appeared in American showrooms.
Americans had arrived in the 20th Century with an adventurous reputation and the mobility provided by the motor car fitted that template perfectly.
Suddenly the car, described recently by the Wall Street Journal as having the biggest influence of all, was available and accessible.
The Wall St newspaper said: “Henry Ford’s Model T put America on wheels, created mass mobility and revolutionized mass production.”
The Model T arrived with decided impact as even before it was available, US dealers had ordered 15 000 cars and that was more than twice as many cars as Ford Motor had sold the entire previous year.
Reporting on the arrival 100 years ago of the Model T, the Wall St Journal said that not only had the car established the American middle class, but it had also reshaped the country’s physical landscape with suburban sprawl.
The idea of the car is entrenched in the human psyche; it has been a wonderful boon to mankind, but as we cruise into the future we draw closer to the abyss courtesy of the car.
The car and the mobility it allows has ravaged small communities, destroying some and sacrificing our public transport network on the altar of the car.
Many would point to the social advantages of a car, but in fact it is the reverse as they are isolationist and nothing but powerful symbols of status.
Henry Ford was an innovative thinker who not only understood things of a mechanical nature, but he also had a powerful sense of what it is that ignites peoples’ emotions and armed with those two things, he changed the world, literally.
