Ford and Friends Celebrate Model T Centennial in Indiana: Part 3

Continued from yesterday… The Model T was designed and first built in Detroit, at a small, three-story brick factory called the Piquette Plant. Prototype Model Ts were probably driving around in the summer of 1908, but the first production hand-built Model T wasn’t produced until September 27 of that year.

As the cars became successful, Ford Motor quickly outgrew the Piquette Plant and built Highland Park, where the assembly line was born. Ford sold the six-year-old Piquette Plant to Studebaker in 1910.

Versatile, the Model T came in a number of different body styles including open-air roadsters, speedsters, coupes, sedans, etc. Made to be flexible to handle the rough roads, they were also simple to operate. The factory turned them out with few accessories – many models didn’t have a door for the driver, for example, to cut costs – but a vast aftermarket industry sprung up to supply T owners with items such as fuel gauges (instead of the wooden ruler that drivers used to check out how much gas was in the tank).

Note: Come back tomorrow for part four: Racers and Custom One-Offs are Part of the Model T Tradition