Imagine that you have to walk five kilometers to school and back every day, that a shopping trip to nearest city- a whole event in your life. When Henry Ford built his first car, the Tin Lizzie, millions of people were able to buy a cheap and reliable car.

(1863-1947) invented the conveyor. He turned the automotive industry into the leading branch of the world industry.

Henry Ford was in his early twenties when, in 1885, a German engineer Karl Benz created the world's first gasoline-powered car. The car had three wheels, was slow, uncomfortable, difficult to drive. Who would have guessed that he would give rise to a powerful automotive industry that will change the face of our civilization?

Thirst for the new

When word got out about Benz's invention, Ford was working as a mechanic in Detroit. More and more new information about the work of Benz and his competitors appeared in the press. Ford was so interested in these publications that he soon set about building his own gasoline engine, and then in 1896 assembled the entire car. The car had four wheels from a bicycle; Ford named it "The Quadricycle".

In 1903, having already gained experience (he worked for several years at an automobile plant in Detroit), Ford founded his own company, Ford Motor.

public car

Ford turned out to be not only a brilliant engineer, but also a talented businessman. He noticed that most car manufacturers are targeting the rich, who need a car for fun. They preferred expensive and speed models. Ford was able to look into the future and understand that soon many families will want to buy a car. It should be relatively inexpensive, easy to operate and repair, and not require a lot of fuel. Ford decided to produce cars for ordinary people, for those who today are called "mass consumers".

There were other automakers who made cars for the poor, such as Russell Olds, who made the famous "Oldsmobiles". But Ford found its customers - millions of simple American farmers like his father.

iron workhorse

These people needed a reliable workhorse that would help them do many jobs: look after the cattle grazing on a remote pasture; deliver grain to the market; pick up mail go to the nearest city for shopping and take the family to visit the neighbors.

A simple farmer does not need luxury speed car. He needs a reliable, easy-to-maintain car so that he can easily fix the breakdown. And besides, the price should not be too high. Henry Ford set himself the goal - to make a car that meets all these requirements.

The first car of the Ford Motor Company was the Model A, which appeared in 1903. Others followed. Ford constantly improved the design of their cars until they reached the goal.

Ford's Highland Park factory, which opened in 1906.

In 1906 the company moved to a new building. Here it was possible to arrange the production of the car that Henry Ford designed. On October 1, 1908, the plant began production of a new car. It was a Ford Model T.

Don't miss out on success

The first " T models cost $850. It wasn't cheap, but the car was more powerful, more economical, easier to maintain, and more versatile than other cars for the same price.

Orders poured in new car, but the production did not have time to cope with them. The car was a success, and Ford did not have the opportunity to satisfy all applications. To deal with the situation, Ford announced in 1909 that his factory would switch entirely to "Model T" production, and that the buyer could paint the black car any color he wanted.

Facts and events

• In 1922, for the first time, more than a million "Model Ts" were produced in a year.
• A total of 15,007,033 Model Ts were produced, not counting the millions of spare parts needed to service these machines.
• The record for the production of cars of one model - 15,007,033 pieces - lasted until 1972, when it was beaten by the Beetle model of the Volkswagen company.
• Production methods pioneered by Ford were adopted in Europe after

like Giovanni Angelini from Italian company Fiat visited Highland Park in 1912. Shortly after his return to Italy, Fiat set out to build a new factory near Turin.

But, despite these innovations, the company could not make as many cars as required. Ford was sorry to miss out on the profits. He understood that people who couldn't buy a Model T would buy a car from another company. After all, many manufacturers, large and small, sought to break into the market. He also realized that if he could increase the number of cars produced, then it would be possible to reduce the price and buyers would increase.

Mass production

To solve the problems facing him, Ford began to improve the technology of mass production. Previously, the same items, such as watches or shoes, were made from start to finish by one person. All parts were made separately, and therefore the finished products differed little from each other.

In mass production, finished products are assembled from prefabricated identical parts, each of which can be replaced by another. This not only speeds up production, but also simplifies repairs: spare parts are always at hand.

The figure shows the initial stage of assembly line production at the Ford plant. The entire process of manufacturing a car is divided into sequential operations. This simplifies and speeds up assembly. The body of the car with already fixed on it back seat slides down an inclined plane down to the running gear of the car moving along the conveyor. Workers standing on the sides set the body in place, and the conveyor delivers the car to the next stage of assembly.

"ModelT" 1913, assembled on the conveyor.

Mass production has been known for a long time. This method has been used since 1800 in the manufacture of guns and pistols, and then watches, sewing and printing machines. In 1902, Russell Olds began to assemble his "Oldsmobiles" according to this principle.

Ford was the first to use a moving conveyor belt to assemble cars. At first, the body of the car was put on the conveyor, then the conveyor transported it to the next assembly stage, where wheels were attached to it, and so on. As the car moved along the assembly line, more and more new parts were added to it. Each worker stood in his place and performed one single operation. The necessary parts were delivered directly to the workplace. After the introduction of the assembly line in 1913, the production of cars increased sharply, but new difficulties lay ahead of Ford.

Trouble on the assembly line

The workers at the Ford plant did not like the assembly line. Now they were making twice as many cars and making the same amount of money. Soon they began to leave the factory: boring, monotonous work on the assembly line is very tiring. There were not enough workers - the number of cars produced decreased.

Then Ford developed a pay system in which workers were interested in the profits of the company. The more cars they made, the more money they got. At new system workers' wages doubled. Ford again found a way out of a difficult situation.

Since then " model T became more and more popular. By 1916, 2,000 cars were being produced every day, and the price had fallen to $360. In 1922, Ford overcame the million milestone - more than 1 million 200 thousand cars were produced. The "Model T" was discontinued only in 1927. By that time, there were already more than 15 million of these cars on the roads. Even in the 50s in America, you could still find "model T". Strong and reliable, they served their masters to the end.

Ford T

first left hand drive car

If Benz and Daimler are considered the parents of the car, then Henry Ford can rightfully be considered the educator of this main technical device of our time. Indeed, what was the car before him? An expensive technical toy, which, according to the then experts, could never fully replace the horse. Moreover, there was not even a consensus on what type of engine a car should be - steam, gasoline or electric.
But only Ford put an end to this dispute, which lasted the first two decades of the existence of the car. This point has become famous model T .
Henry's Horseless Carriage Firm Ford founded in 1903. The first years, production was not shaky and not rolled, until the factory Ford rather than come his namesake engineer Henry Wills. Firmly put " Ford"on all four wheels happened to him. The development of this car Wills began in 1907, and in October of the following year the first copy went on sale. The machine, which weighed 1940 pounds (880 kg), was so simple in design that even at that time it was considered primitive. So, there were no water and oil pumps in the car - water circulated in the cooling system due to the temperature difference, and the engine was lubricated by spraying. In order to simplify and reduce the cost of the car, Wills abandoned the valve adjustment mechanism, and even made the wheels non-removable - only the tire could be dismantled. Fuel from a 45-liter cylindrical tank located under the seat entered the carburetor by gravity, since there was also no fuel pump. However, many progressive technical innovations: a removable cylinder head, four cylinders cast in a single block, and a gearbox combined into a common unit with an engine.
This box deserves a special mention. It was planetary - axes and gears, in addition to rotation, performed circular motions. This unusual transmission provided two gears forward and one reverse, and a special pedal located between the clutch and the brake served to engage the reverse gear. However, this does not mean that the car had four pedals - the role of the gas pedal familiar to drivers was played by a small lever with right side under the steering column. At the same time, the carburetor damper did not have a spring, and the driver did not have to constantly hold the gas. It was enough to turn the lever at a certain angle, and the supply of gas-air mixture to the engine remained constant until the driver himself changed it.

Electric starters were not yet widespread at that time (they were only on Rolls-Royces in those days), and the car had to be started with a crank. The clutch then was also not dry, and therefore, when starting the car in cold weather, the clutch could not be completely disengaged. Because of this, there were frequent cases when the driver who started the engine was crushed by his own car that had taken off. Generally, start Ford T was a real punishment. Due to the low power of the magneto, the spark was weak, and the engine started on the third or fourth attempt. The first and third cylinders began to work first, and after two or three seconds the second and fourth joined them. Many drivers came up with their own little tricks. So, some of them stopped the cars on the hill and started the car, first releasing the clutch and letting it roll, and then releasing the pedal. With a compression ratio of three and a half units, the engine started up quite quickly in this way. If the driver was going to go not alone, not alone, then he asked his passenger to push Ford T, and the car started quickly from the pusher. Very quickly, the New York, Chicago and Philadelphia boys found for themselves new way earnings. Seeing stopped Ford T, they were waiting for the driver to return and offered him twenty-five cents to push the car.

The engine of the car, the manufacture of which was subcontracted to the Dodge brothers, with a 95.25 mm bore and 101.6 mm stroke, had a displacement of 2893 cm 3 and developed a power of 22.5 liters. With. at 1800 rpm. If you convert fuel consumption from miles per gallon to liters per hundred kilometers, you get a rather small consumption of 11 liters for those times. For comparison, his classmate, ours, who appeared five years later, had a smaller working volume by 682 cm 3 and a higher compression ratio by 0.4 units and the same engine power, consumed 16 liters at the same distance. You will say that he spent so much on Russian roads. Yes, but american roads were no better in those days. Moreover, it was precisely the lack of good roads and… well-developed suburban rail transport. The whole point is that Ford T weighed less by about 440 kilograms, that is, about one and a half times.
Poor windability was not the only drawback of the Lizi, as the model was called. T then Americans. The absence of a fuel pump led to the fact that Ford T deaf on the rise, and small gear ratio V main gear, reduced in pursuit of speed from 3.67, first to 3.0, and then to 2.75, contributed to the fact that Ford T deaf already when he was just trying to drive up the hill.
However, the latter disadvantage was compensated by the fact that maximum speed"Lizi" from 78 km / h increased first to 96, and then to 104. In the same years, it accelerated only to 70 miles per hour, that is, to 74.669 kilometers.

It is the speed qualities Ford allowed American car finally win in a difficult competition ... with a horse. Now it may seem ridiculous, but the then futurologists were arguing about how many janitors would be needed in a hundred years if there were seven and a half million horses in a city with a population of ten million. Their calculations showed that almost a third of the urban population should be involved in cleaning this amount of manure from the streets.
This historic victory over horse-drawn transport took place in June 1909, when Ford T, having won the New York-Seattle Rally, spent 22 days, 0 hours and 52 minutes on this trip. After that, America believed in the car.
Yes, indeed, Ford often broke down. But its advantage turned out to be that it could be quickly repaired. And it was possible to quickly repair it because the standardization of parts was first used on this car. Now it sounds strange, but then the part from one Packard, Studebaker or Oldsmobile did not fit another car of the same make, model and modification. Every detail was specially machined and adjusted on site. And only with the advent of "Lizi" did the concept of spare parts appear. And in August 1913, "Lizi" accomplished new revolution, standing on the conveyor for the first time. The idea of ​​conveyor production was put forward by engineer Avery, a specialist in the field of equipment and machine tools. Together with his partner. Klann, he came to the conclusion that "assembly on the go" will help to significantly speed up and reduce the cost of car production. Ford quickly realized what huge profits the proposal of the two engineers promised, and supported him.

Ford TT - a cargo version of the Ford T
All these innovations led to the fact that Lizi not only conquered America, but also chopped off a significant part of the European market. Many Fords were delivered to Russia and the USSR, and on one of these cars, having taken a sip of moonshine for courage, the famous commander of the Civil War, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, famously dissected.

The price of the model has been declining over time. If in 1909 Ford T cost $850, then in 1913 its price dropped to $550, in 1915 to $440, and by the end of production Ford T sold for $260.
Release Ford T continued until October 1927. Over the years, 15007003 cars were produced. However, the model T has not gone into oblivion. Based on this, a model was created cargo modification which later became our famous .
Many Ford T continued to be used for many years after the cessation of their production, and the model was in service with the US Army until 1937. Therefore, the engine for this model continued to be produced until August 4, 1941.

See also: style="font-family: Times New Roman">

	Recently a film dedicated to the famous actor, poet, singer, legend of the Brezhnev era, Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky, was released on the cinema screens of our once united country - Vysotsky. Thank you for being alive. A 1974 Mercedes car was used on the set of this film, which is an exact copy of blue Mercedes Vladimir Vysotsky. Read more →
	The post-war model differed from the pre-war one in the absence of a spare tire and a larger trunk, as well as the presence of larger rear lights and additional overhead brake lights, which could also serve as direction indicators. The modification that appeared in 1951 was called 15 c.v.
	Schellenberg performed by Oleg Tabakov arrives at the Tempelhof airfield. In the role of his car - a real car Schellenberg Horch-853A. Standing in the background with German identification marks applied to it.
	Wearing a black uniform with , Stirlitz, after breakfast, left the house. Sitting behind the wheel, he slammed the rear-opening front door and turned the ignition key. 55 hp, 2,229 cc, six-cylinder, low-valve engine. cm started up only on the third attempt - the designers of the car in the peaceful year of 1935 could not even imagine that artificial gasoline made from coal would be poured into the tank of their offspring. .
	A little more than half a century ago, in November 1953, the first preparatory brigades of the virgin lands conquerors arrived in the Kustanai steppe. And although the rise of virgin lands officially began in 1954, its development began when teams of builders arrived at the site of future virgin sovkhozes, who erected barracks for future virgin lands during the winter. Many are now questioning the feasibility of raising the virgin lands. Read more →
	This car was created as Stalin's car. But Stalin, as you remember, drove a Packard 14 series car. However, for the party-Soviet nomenklatura, this car turned out to be very useful. Read more →
	Reich Minister of Public Education and Propaganda of the Third Reich, Ph.D. Paul Joseph Goebbels liked to pretend to be an ascetic. Unlike his party colleague Hermann Göring, he didn't like to drink hard and swear hard, but like Göring, Goebbels liked luxury sports cars. He had many of them, but the most favorite was the Mercedes 540K convertible. On this Mercedes, he, having released the driver and security, went to the small town of Babelsberg.
	The history of this car began on the eve of the US entry into World War II, when the need for american army in off-road trucks for transporting troops and towing guns. At the end of 1940, the army decided to place an order for three-axle trucks with a payload capacity of 2.5 tons per " General Motors". On the basis of the T 16 Special truck produced in 1938, produced for the French army, the corporation developed the GMC AFWX model, later nicknamed Jimmy. The alteration consisted in lengthening the base and adding a third axle.
	Many of you remember the American detective series that was shown on various TV channels in last years. His hero is an LAPD lieutenant in a crumpled raincoat and an equally crumpled face. At first glance, Lieutenant Flip Colombo is a clumsy simpleton with awkward manners and gait. To match the clumsy appearance, the detective was also matched with an outwardly clumsy car, the brand of which even connoisseurs of automotive history find it difficult to determine.
	The rally at the Michelson plant came to an end. Lenin stepped down from the podium and, bowing his head forward, walked with long strides towards the exit of the grenade shop. After walking nine fathoms, accompanied by a crowd, he approached a Rolls-Royce waiting for him in the yard. Lenin only had time to reply that by his recent decree he abolished looting. At that moment, shots rang out. Two bullets hit Lenin: one bullet, entering over the left shoulder blade, penetrated the chest cavity, damaged the upper lobe of the lung, causing a hemorrhage in the pleura and stuck in ...
	By October 1, 1931, the reconstruction of the plant was completed. AMO was renamed the Stalin Plant, and trucks began to be assembled from domestic components. For the ZiS-5, as the truck began to be called, they made new engine. On AMO-3, as well as on its American prototype, there was an in-line six-cylinder engine Hercules 60 hp at 2000 rpm. With a cylinder diameter of 3.75 inches (95.25 mm) and a piston stroke of 4.5 inches (114.3 mm), the displacement was 4882 cm3.
	Many of you no doubt remember the Fantômas film series from the 1960s. Then, in the sixty-fifth, when Fantomas in the second film was very raging, even our special services took the film seriously. In particular, they ordered auto and aircraft designers to create a flying car, such as the on-screen Fantomas had.
	P first taxi Russian Empire appeared not in St. Petersburg, not in Moscow, not in Kyiv and not in Warsaw. The first taxi appeared in Verny, the capital of the then Semirechensk region of the Turkestan Governor-General. Its owner was a businessman from the now Kyrgyz Tokmak (then most of Kyrgyzstan was part of the Semirechensk region) Babakhan Nurmukhammedbaev, who in 1906 brought to Faithful car stamps Berlie .
	Alfa Romeo Giulietta was chosen by the Jackal not by chance: back in London, looking through car magazines, he found out that of all the cars made in Italy, only Alfa Romeo Giulietta had a powerful steel frame with a deep recess in central rib rigidity.
	In the period from 1944 to 1949, Khrushchev drove an American car Cadillac–Fleetwood 75 1939 issue, which became a trophy of the Soviet troops in 1944. It was this car that was ordered for the American consul in Berlin in 1938, and after the US entered the war with Germany, it was confiscated and sent to Hitler's headquarters. werewolf, near Vinnitsa. In the future, until the moment the car fell into the hands of the Soviet military, it was driven by the head of the Fuhrer's personal guard, Hans Rattenhuber.
	Back in the same 1916, the then owners of the plant, the Ryabushinsky brothers, chose the Fiat 15 Ter of the 1912 model as the base truck model for the needs of the Imperial Army, which had proven itself well in Libyan off-road conditions during the Italo-Turkish war. The engine was started using crooked starter- crank. Instead of a generator, the ignition spark was generated by a magneto, and a six-volt battery served only to power the headlights. The battery power was not enough even for sound signal, and therefore in the AMO-F-15 it was equipped with a horn.
	The car was a truck off-road with double busbar rear axles. Its length with a 4980 mm wheelbase was 6600 mm, and the width was 2235 mm. The same in-line six-cylinder was installed on the car with carbureted engine water-cooled, which was also installed on the ZiS-5.
	In 2010 Ulyanovsk car factory resumed production of the UAZ-469 car of the 1972 model. This car, which inherited the nickname Goat from its predecessor GAZ-69, in its original form produced in Ulyanovsk for 13 years. In 1985, it was renamed UAZ-3151, equipped with vacuum booster brakes and increased engine power, and in 1993 the UAZ was finally equipped with a hardtop body. However, the country needed the cheapest possible UAZ.

Yesterday's Boardwalk Empire filming day took place on the street, and old cars were involved in the scene. Today, not a word about cinema, but only about cars. Moreover, I have not written about them for a long time.

All cars were of the same model - it was the legendary Ford T in various modifications. On the Internet, its name "Tin Lizzy" is found, which is just a direct translation of the American nickname "Tin Lizzy", which in my opinion is not very true if you try to figure out its origin. There are several versions of the origin of the name, and none of them has been confirmed. I like the one that says that Lizzie was the most common nickname for working horses, which was replaced by an inexpensive and reliable Ford-T. He was immediately dubbed the same name as the horse. Tin is tinned iron - the tin from which they made cans. It would be more correct to say "Tin Lizzy". There were so many Ford Model T cars, and they served so long, that subsequently Tin Lizzy began to be called any old collapsing vehicle. We now call the old wrecked car "bucket", and the Americans called it tin lizzy.

2.

Henry Ford himself called his Ford-T " universal car", the owners, in addition to Tin Lizzy, called him simply Ti, a rattletrap, a jalopy, a wreck, a gasoline-powered bedbug and many other equally striking nicknames. But this is all, of course, out of love. After all, it was thanks to Lizzy that America got behind the wheel of a car and drove .

3.

4. "A car can be any color, provided that this color is black" - once said Henry Ford. The reason was conveyor production and the fact that of all the enamels used for painting, it was black that dried out the fastest. In just 48 hours, while other colors could take several weeks to dry. With the development of chemistry, this problem disappeared, and Ford began to offer bodies in other colors, but the wings and some elements still remained black due to the specifics of the conveyor assembly.

5. The suspension consisted of two transverse springs. Because of this, the car swayed pretty decently from side to side on potholes and bumps. And the roads of the then America consisted entirely of these very bumps and bumps. There were no expressways in America then, but bad roads it was more than enough. Thanks to the great ground clearance the car perfectly overcame any off-road, and if it got stuck, then pulling out a car weighing only 850 kilograms on narrow tires was not a serious problem. Several grown men could easily push him out of even the deepest mud.

6. Windshield consisted of two horizontal parts. Janitor became standard equipment only on later versions. Very few parts were nickel plated. On these machines, only the radiator cap, headlight bezels, door handles, caps on the hubs, and some trim elements.

7. Winding a car with a handle was not a very difficult operation, but it still needed experience and some skill. More than sure that none of modern drivers will not be able to do this without first studying the instructions. It should only be started with the left hand. In cold weather, when the oil was thick, the engine did not completely disengage from the transmission, and a crooked starter could knock the owner off their feet.

8. The winding process can be seen in this video from 8:36.

9. Buttons for blocking the opening of the door were then ordinary sliding bolts. And here side windows up and down in the usual way.

10. Upper half opening mechanism windshield. There are no sun visors in the cabin yet.

If you messed up something, write, I will correct it.

Glory came to Henry Ford (1863-1947) thanks to the nondescript car model "T", jokingly nicknamed in America the car of losers. For 19 years, this model was produced in almost unchanged form, and more such cars drove on the roads of the globe than all the others.

Why was the Model T called a loser's car? According to the Americans, the lucky one earns thousands or millions of dollars. This guy won't buy a Model T, he'll buy a Cadillac or a Packard. Everyone else is a "loser". But Ford was counting on them. After all, there are far more of them than millionaires.

Young Ford's activity as an inventor-designer took a backseat in 1899 when he founded the Detroit car company. To develop a cheap mass machine, for introduction mass production he was inspired not so much by creative ideas as by business.

Ford set a small (up to $1,000) price for the Model T, but produced tens of thousands, then millions of cars a year, becoming one of the richest people in the world. Ford's idea was to divide the work of manufacturing a car into many operations, entrust each operation to one or two workers, free them from the delivery from the warehouse, sorting and fitting parts. Manufactured parts and assembled mechanisms must move past the workers on chains, tapes, roller tables. So the conveyor was born.

Now he is known to everyone. If you release a lot of the same, standard cars, then you can use the most complex expensive machine tools and other production equipment that will replace manual labor. Equipment costs are gradually spread out over the thousands of machines produced. With the individual production of each car, as was done by all factories at the beginning of the 20th century, mechanization is not justified, it places a heavy burden on the sale price of the car. However, any technical improvement, invention, discovery can be turned to the detriment of a person. It is enough to start the conveyor a little faster - almost imperceptibly for the worker, in order to extract the necessary profit. And after a while - even a little faster ... And the result is a "scientific system of squeezing sweat", subjected to sharp criticism by V. I. Lenin.

Ford model "T" device

Model "T" had everything necessary, according to the concepts of its time, for safe movement, it was free from excesses. The simplicity of the device plus durable materials provided the machine with a mass of 550 kg, i.e. 3-5 times less than that of big machines. A 20-horsepower engine was enough to reach speeds of up to 70 km / h on the Ford.

A mass-produced car could no longer be specially adapted to individual needs, it had to become universal. "Ford-T" in terms of the number of seats (five) was approaching big cars, and for the simplicity of design and decoration - to "vouaturettes".

The simplicity of its design begins with an engine with four cylinders cast in one block (instead of separate or twin cylinders). Fuel is supplied to the engine by gravity from a tank installed under the seat; no need to pressurize the tank with a hand pump or exhaust gases. There are only two gears in the box, this is enough for light car. Instead of four longitudinal springs - two transverse ones. There is no battery on the car, the headlights are powered by the magneto of the ignition system.

When buying a Ford-T, future owners did not think that they would later have to pay for its cheapness and simplicity. On steep climbs the tank was lower than the engine, and fuel did not flow to the carburetor. In this regard, it is said that a certain farmer told the seller that he would buy a car if it could overcome the rise to his house. The seller didn't hesitate. During the demonstration, he famously drove into the alley in the middle of the ascent, turned the wheels sharply, the rest of the way moved in reverse and said to the buyer: “You see, this hill is mere trifles for your future car, she even takes it in reverse! To fill the tank, the passenger had to vacate the seat. The headlights shone dimly and blinked if the engine was running at low speeds. Therefore, in the dark, drivers deliberately increased speed, moving to low gear. When starting the machine in cold weather frozen oil blocked the gearbox, the engine was connected directly to the rear wheels (the clutch was in the gearbox). Rotating the crank, the driver turned not only the engine shaft, but also ... the wheels. They started to roll, and you had to dodge the car, jump on the seat on the move to quickly press the gas pedal, otherwise the engine would stall. Other drivers, before starting the car, raised rear wheel jack, which was removed after heating the oil. In a cold engine, all cylinders did not immediately begin to act, and it worked in jolts, shaking the car.

However, during the day in warm weather, the car worked confidently, which completely satisfied the then motorists. Reconciled with the need frequent maintenance mechanisms; there was even a special interest in this, especially since a set of tools useful in any household was attached to the car. They put up with the fact that almost all Fords were painted black. (Ford jokingly said, "You can buy a car from us in any color, as long as that color is black.") In general, Ford pleased the then "average American."

Although cartoonists liked to mock Model T's modest appearance, she was beautiful in her own way. Its beauty is in its simplicity. It looks like you can't take anything away or add anything. But the moment came when motorists saw the wretchedness in the simplicity of the Ford. What seemed simple now appeared to be insufficiently strict, angular. Yet the Ford example shows exactly what simple form car is able to "live" for a relatively long time.

Conveyor production of cars

The conveyor method of production and the reliability of automobiles, however, could become a reality only after the cooperation of enterprises (or the creation of such a gigantic complex of factories as Ford's), the achievement of machining accuracy, the interchangeability of parts, and the use of new materials in the construction of a car.

The car combined three complex elements - crew, engine and transmission. Crew factories, which have now become automotive, did not do everything themselves, but bought springs, seat cushions, and forgings on the side. There were special factories automotive engines, power supply and ignition devices. The internal structure of enterprises and their external relations became more complicated.

Since cars were serviced and repaired often in conditions where there were no mechanical workshops nearby, it was necessary to replace damaged parts with others that could be easily bought. At first, it never occurred to car builders that a complex car could be made in any other way than individual production and fitting parts. Can you compare a car with a rifle bolt, which was already made from interchangeable parts? Yes, and the skill of autobuilders has not yet been compared with the qualifications of gunsmiths.

In 1907, the American designer and technologist, the head of the Cadillac company, Henry Leland (1843-1932), built three cars from carefully crafted parts. To demonstrate the interchangeability of their parts, the machines were dismantled and turned into a pile of metal objects. In front of hundreds of spectators (it happened at the stadium), the mechanics, choosing random parts from a pile, again mounted three cars. Then, these machines were made 800-kilometer run without a single breakdown, which for that time was a great achievement.

The high precision in the manufacture of parts and assembly of the engine has led, for example, to the fact that its power has doubled. Another step has been taken towards mass production cars.

The next step is the use of strong and light steel alloys - the designers suggested racing cars. Based on their experience, high-strength steels were created, in particular vanadium, which is widely used in the design of Ford-T. Automakers demanded from metallurgists the creation of metals and alloys with constant chemical and mechanical properties, stainless steel, calibrated smooth-drawn sheet. Powerful mills appeared for rolling this sheet, presses for forming body panels from it, and the most precise machines for cutting silent gears.

Development of the automotive industry

The automotive industry began to consume a good half of the produced steel and iron, three-quarters of rubber and leather, a third of nickel and aluminum, a seventh of wood and copper. Automotive industry came out on top in terms of production volume among other branches of engineering, began to have a serious impact on the economic life of states. By the beginning of the First World War, the fleet of cars on the globe amounted to about 2 million. Of these, 1.3 million were in the United States, 245 thousand in England, 100 thousand in France, 57 thousand in Austria-Hungary, 12 thousand - to Italy, 10 thousand - to the Russian Empire.

With all the variety of bodies and units technical specifications most of the "veterans" fits into the classic scheme with a "double-phaeton" body, a stamped frame (instead of the old oak, forged steel) and, as a rule, four-cylinder engine. The options now come down only to battery or magneto ignition: to the location of the gearbox separately (less and less often) or in a block with an engine; to the transmission of force to the wheels by a chain (also rare) or cardan shaft; suspension of rigid axles on four longitudinal (except Ford-T) semi-elliptical springs, sometimes with an additional rear transverse spring; to band or shoe brakes on rear wheels; to the presence or absence of shock absorbers, electric lighting and folding awning.

Technical and operational indicators reached the following values ​​on average: the average number of seats - 4 (instead of 3.5 at the very beginning of the century); specific power - 19.5 liters. s / t (instead of 9 l. s / t); maximum speed - 80 km / h (instead of 50 km / h); acceleration time from standstill to speed - 60 km / h about 15 s (instead of 30-40 s); fuel consumption decreased by only 5-10%. The estimated efficiency indicator increased by 1.5 times. It seems to be very modest. But it must be taken into account that the main development goals in this period were dynamics and comfort, and they were achieved not only due to the improvement of the engine, but also as a result of the weighting of the car by almost 1.5 times. They may object: after all, the number of places has been increased! Yes, but still the mass of the car per passenger has increased by 30%. Ultimately, the value of the total estimated indicator (let me remind you: at the very beginning of the century it barely exceeded one) doubled.