1911 Model T Touring car owned by Sherwin Stapley of Campbellford, Ont.

    One hundred years ago, in 1910, the Ford Motor Co. opened the famous factory that three years later gave birth to the moving assembly line. This looming anniversary gives us the chance to clear up few misconceptions about that landmark event.
   “History is more or less bunk,” Henry Ford famously said in 1916.
When he made that statement I wonder if, in the back of his mind, was the fact that history already was crediting him with the creation of the moving assembly line when, in fact, it really was the work of some of his key employees.
    True, nothing happened at the Ford Motor Co. back then that didn’t have Henry’s stamp of approval. But the man in charge of the team that created that moving assembly line was a Canadian – Peter Edmund Martin.
    Born in Wallaceburg, near the border with Michigan, Martin was put in charge of the experimental room at Ford’s Piquette Plant in 1906, where the Model T was developed under his supervision. In 1907, Martin – known as “Ed” – became plant superintendent.
    Model Ts were built on Piquette Ave. from 1908-1910 when Ford Motor Co. opened what was then the world’s largest automotive manufacturing facility in the Detroit suburb of Highland Park. Martin became its superintendent as well.
    The story of how Ford employee William Klann had seen a “disassembly line” at a Chicago slaughterhouse is well documented. Klann figured that if animals could be butchered as they moved along an overhead conveyor, cars could be built in much the same way. Upon his return to Detroit he reported to Martin, who, if doubtful, nonetheless was open to further development of the idea.
    The process of a moving line – where each employee concentrated on one job – evolved by trial and error with Martin, his assistant Charles Sorenson and legendary designer and toolmaker Childe Harold Wills leading the way.
    On October 7, 1913, a rudimentary assembly line – with a Model T chassis being pulled on a rope – went into operation. The chassis travelled 150 feet, in which it passed by 140 workers who attached parts kept right at hand. This new moving assembly line allowed Ford to slash production time for a single vehicle from 12½ hours to five hours and 50 minutes.
    (It was another Canadian – James Couzens – who set up the “just in time” delivery of parts that kept the Model T assembly line moving at peak efficiency.)
    Soon the line was improved with a power-driven conveyor system wide enough for the chassis and with space for workers on both sides. Assembly began on the top floor of the four-story building, where the engine was put together, and progressed to street level, where the body was attached to the chassis.
    By 1914, continuous improvements had shortened assembly time to one hour and 33 minutes. That meant cars were coming off the line in three minute intervals causing paint to become a bottleneck. Only Japan black paint would dry fast enough, prompting the famous Ford saying that you could have any colour you wanted so long as it was black. That lasted until quicker drying lacquers were developed in 1926.
    The reduced number of man-hours per car also allowed Ford to continuously cut the retail price of a Model T.
    In 1928 the company moved automobile assembly to the even larger River Rouge plant in nearby Dearborn. Automotive trim manufacturing and tractor assembly continued at Highland Park until it was closed in the 1950s. On June 2, 1978 the U.S. government declared the Highland Park plant a National Historic Landmark. It is now used by the Ford Motor Co. for document storage and by the Henry Ford Museum as a repository for excess artifacts.
    Go to http://cardatavideo.blogspot.com/2008/08/ford-model-t-world-most-famous-car.html and you’ll find a video on the Highland Park Model T assembly line in action.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com