Henry Ford
125 yeast since Henry Ford completed work on his first petrol-powered engine
24 May 2021
Henry Ford and the Car Revolution
In 1891, Henry Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit. After his promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893, he had enough time and money to devote attention to his experiments on gasoline engines. On 4th June 1896 in a tiny workshop behind his home in Detroit, Ford put the finishing touches on his pure ethanol-powered motor. After more than two years of experimentation, Ford, at the age of 32, had completed his first experimental automobile, which he named "Quadricycle". The success of the little vehicle led to the founding of the Henry Ford Company and then later the Ford Motor Company in 1903.Five years later, in 1908, the Model T was Ford's first automobile to be mass-produced on moving assembly lines with completely interchangeable parts. Ford's iconic Model T was successful not only because it provided inexpensive transportation on a massive scale, but also because the car signified innovation for the rising middle class and became a powerful symbol of the United States' age of modernization.
The really amazing thing is, that it took Henry Ford only 12 years from the the invention of his first gasoline-powered engine, to mass producing a car, which in 1999 was voted the most influential car of the 20th Century.
To see a selection of images please click here.