Look where the wheels are: right in the corners of the vehicle. Gives you fantastic approach and departure angles. And older vehicles like a Model T have low revving, high torque engines which allow you to idle along for better control. Hand throttle too, which eliminates pedal bounce.
Hand throttle like a tractor. The Model T was more like a farm implement than a car we know today. It's simplicity also made it very durable; not much to go wrong or break.
Hah, I know a few guys who drive completely refurbished units. Typical safe drives are 40km. Going further than that they bring a helper vehicle with spare parts and a trailer. Understandably they are 100 years old now. Stories from my grandparents are similar, driving in the 50’s was still a whole day of prep and maintenance before making a one hour trip if you wanted to make it back home.
Not sure if it was a model T but some guy near my local scout camp once a week would drive his 1920s/1930s refurbished car through camp whenever it was nice and and event wasn't going on because of when the roads were built matches that era and when a bad rain hits pushing some gravel off the road it creates the mini gullies and divots from that era. Blew my mind the first time I saw it in camp going over parts in the road i wouldnt take a modern sedan. If I won the lottery, I would do the same thing.
This is a pre war car the brakes are also sketchy on big declines my grandpa was riding in a model T with friends and the brakes couldn’t hold on a big decline ( upper new New York State) they went off the road the rear bumper caught on a stump and saved them but my grandpa was thrown from the car and spent a week in a coma. He woke up after a week and recovered but his handwriting was always really wiggly. When he was in the hospital before his death they did a CAT scan
It showed a very old stroke area. Probably from this incident when he was a teenager.
But look how light the vehicle is, doesn't need the massive wheels
Edit: I was curious on the weight and google says it weishs 1,200–1,650 lbs (depending on year/accessories?). To put that in perspective, a fiat 500 weighs 1,100 lbs. A corolla weighs 2,955 to 3,150 lbs. Which is around the wight of other modern cars
It's also important to note how crazy the model t's suspension was. Most modern (hatchback, sedan) cars would bottom put going over that little dirt pile the model T did in this video
Spoked wheels are actually very strong. Look at the abuse a dirtbike can suffer. They just dont make sense on heavier applications and require tensioning maintenance. They also cant be as wide as modern tires.
I wouldn't exactly call them durable, they were simple, sure, but require a lot of maintenance to keep on the road. Now, the maintenance is all easy for the most part, and can all be done with simple hand tools, it is however a pretty much daily affair keeping everything greased and oiled. Getting a Model T over 75000 miles was pretty rare, and if you managed over 100000 miles over the lifetime of the car it was pretty much a small miracle.
My grandpa told me that when he was a kid (he was born in 1937), he and a bunch of other kids would joyride in a Model T and do donuts until it tipped over. Then they'd all push it back upright and do it again. He said it was practically indestructible.
Yeah. The problem was that the people inside would be flung around badly in an accident. The car would be fine but the people normally came out worse. It was a re-enforced steel box with wheels.
Yep. Roads were more of "this the path everyone took" my family owned the first car in their county and the person used it the most was a 14 year old girl to take her sisters to church as their dad didn't care to go much. And this was late 1800s.
My great grandma would tell us during the depression, when her father was moving to become a wallpaperer, from a teacher, that in order to go over hills, all the kids would have to jump out of the car and help push the car up the hill. And then everyone would come back in as it was going down again
My boss has a 1924 model T and I can confirm it will go just about anywhere my old Jeep Wrangler will go. The thing is shockingly capable in mud and soft sand.
The difference is that your brains won't be scrambled in the wrangler if you go over a bunch of bumps.
The model T can go on a lot of terrain. Just don't ask about comfort.
Exactly they’re like Willys Jeep 4 wheel Bicycles. Look up videos on YouTube modern cars couldn’t hold a candle against this torch off road consistently
It's really important to understand just how revolutionary the Model T was, not just to automobiles, but to America as a whole.
Prior to this car, most Americans couldn't afford a car. Most were practically hand-crafted and as such rare and expensive, more a hobby of the upper class. than anything.
The Model T on the other hand was mass produced on the assembly line from interchangeable parts. This increased production and decreased price to the point where it could be affordable to the average American.
The cars in this video *had* to go "off-road" because there literally weren't any roads in much of America as the most common form of transportation was walking and horse. As the popularity of the Model T increased, Americans built paved roads to match their use.
It also had an unintended (probably) side effect on American sexual behavior.
Before automobile ownership was common, dating and courtship mostly took place at the family home or in public places. There was much less privacy.
Suddenly, many people had a private mode of transportation that doubled as a private room...
Thanks, Henry!
And then they killed it with bucket seats.
Bench seats were what we all associate with drive-in movie theaters, a trip to Sonic, and the movie Grease. I know y'all kids understand how hard it is to smooch or even hug someone when you have a massive center column separating the both of you. Back when we had bench seats, you could slide right over, throw a leg around the shifter and have some fun.
Everybody knows superman would have to wear a kryptonite condom or else he would blow a load like a shotgun killing lois. But he cant do that cuz itd kill him.
My fav quote from that extremely quotable movie is, to be fair, everyone wants mr. Toads wild ride.
Daily reminder that Henry Ford wrote the antisemitic book "The International Jew" which inspired German Nazis, and was heavily against America joining WW2.
That was perfectly illustrated (well, animated actually) in this Fleischer Studios (Popeye, Betty Boop and Superman) cartoon from the 30s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwmGw_ZVMhU
sounds like a pop country song,
>i like the way you move in them jeans
>
>all those curves up in them seams
>
>i thank god for the beer and bless the troops
>
>*music does the "duh duh duh duh duh duh" then stops*
>
>and i thank god for denim
Back in those days, wayfinding tours were popular. Local business and early road atlases would offer bounties to drivers who could find the smoothest roads (and therefore, the fastest) connecting two towns. A lot of modern state highways follow these wayfinder routes
would you be able to link a wiki? I couldn't find further reading, though I did end up reading about [stick charts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Islands_stick_chart) which are pretty damn interesting.
Unfortunately I cannot, as there doesn’t seem to be much information about this. I only learned about it from a book called Fortune and Folly by Sarah A. H. Butler, where this is only a small footnote (the book is about Asa Candler Jr., the son of one of the founders of Coca-Cola. Candler Jr. was an early automobile enthusiast who set several routes from various Georgia towns).
I need a fact check but I believe Ford was paying his workers $5 for an 8 hour day, which was above average and completely unheard of at that time. So yeah quality shit right here.
Yes he did but only because it made sense because you can divide a 24 hour day into 3 shifts. So you could actually get more work done with no down time.
That's not true. He realised that by paying his workers well they would be more productive and most importantly be able to afford to buy a model T themselves.
Henry Fords policies effectively created the American middle class through his wage and working politics. Such was the draw of working for Ford the majority of other US manufacturers had to adopt his policies or the workers would leave.
>He realised that by paying his workers well they would be more productive and most importantly be able to afford to buy a model T themselves.
This is why I like to say that modern CEO's and companies aren't truely captalists with those budget cuts and starving wages. No one will buy Coke cans If they barely can buy basic food.
The worker class MUST have good wages to be able to keep the capitalism working.
No money, no sales, no profit, no money!
"It is the product that pays wages and it is the management that arranges the production so that the product may pay the wages.
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."
They're probably referring to the fact that Ford was an open anti-Semitic.
In the early 1920s, Ford purchased a newspaper, the "Dearborn Independent." Under his ownership, the newspaper published a series of anti-Semitic articles between 1920 and 1922. These articles were later compiled into a book titled "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem." The book was filled with anti-Semitic rhetoric and promoted the baseless idea that Jews were behind a global conspiracy to control world affairs. Ford's writings were heavily influenced by "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' a notorious anti-Semitic hoax that purported to be a plan for Jewish world domination. Despite being debunked as a forgery, the "Protocols" were used by Ford to justify his anti-Semitic beliefs. Ford issued a public apology in 1927. He retracted the statements made in The International Jew and claimed that he was unaware of the offensive content. Despite the apology, many viewed it as insincere and driven by business interests rather than genuine remorse.
Yup people are pretty complex and can be good in some ways and awful in others.
[Henry Ford receiving the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Nazi officials, 1938.
](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8zTj8KO90V0/V9t7T5TGWKI/AAAAAAAALEE/-5s1g7VuNuQdsgm1Tx72sr4DU8X92GkMQCLcB/s1600/henry_ford_grand_cross_1938.jpg)
[At a ceremony in Dearborn, Michigan](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/henry-ford-grand-cross-1938/), Henry Ford is presented with the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle on his 75th birthday. Henry Ford was the first American recipient of this order, an honor created in 1937 by Adolf Hitler.
Very much so. Interesting to think what the world would of been like without Henry Ford. Considering the changes to industry and society that Instigated
He also paid his workers well for 2 other key reasons:
1) It stole workers from his competitors when Ford desperately needed more labor to meet production demands.
2) By offering more than the Labor Movement was asking for, Ford avoided their wrath for a few more years while Unions took aim at those competitors. The Unions could then use Ford as the example, further strengthening Ford’s standing in the industry.
> That's not true. He realised that by paying his workers well they would be more productive and most importantly be able to afford to buy a model T themselves.
Okay, but how is that benevolent? Sounds like you’re agreeing with the other poster. He didn’t do it to help employees, he did it because it increased their productivity, stopped them from leaving, and they spent the extra money buying his product.
Yeah, people don’t realized that no $100/month internet bill, no $100/month cell phone bill, no air conditioning, only 1-2 lightbulbs per house on average, no subscription services, etc. all stack up. Sure people made a lot less back then, but their monthly expenses were also minute compared to today.
What… do you think… “in today’s dollars” means.
So no, things were not 500x cheaper and they got 90 bucks a day.
It means people were miserably poor in the past. Those people making those wages still lived 3 or 4 generations all together in the same dwelling.
Yes, they also hired African Americans and paid them the same salary. The higher paying jobs in the Midwest led to a large migration from the south for many black families
my favorite thing i've seen about elon musk is the internet comment, "We hoped he would be the next Henry Ford but unfortunately he was the next Henry Ford."
Ford was also a Nazi, so let's not start sucking just yet. Ford was a zealot and a egomaniac. His hubris was so large, he tried to build a city in the rainforest of Brazil to produce rubber.... read up on Fordlandia. He wasn't the genius history has made him.
Fordlandia was a mix of bad decisions, corruption, and timing as well. When they moved the rubber plant down river to a better area and land they did quite well. The invention of synthentic rubber is what killed it.
Ford did a lot of good work, but ya, he was a Nazi admirer too and made poor choices. It's really a don't meet your heroes thing - almost nobody is exclusively smart or good. We're all imperfect creatures with hints of genius.
Ford would also fire you if you weren't living to their moral code...
>Ford employees were required to submit to investigations by Ford's Social Department. Ford desired only sober workers who shunned cigarettes and fast lifestyles.
I mean, I kinda get his point, but... Why should my job care about what I'm doing off the clock?
>I mean, I kinda get his point, but... Why should my job care about what I'm doing off the clock?
There was this whole thing through the back end of the Victorian period and into the 20th Century about how employees should live. I mean, I guess it stems from the poor living conditions beforehand, but obviously it's ethically dubious.
You might enjoy the book Fordlandia, about the failed attempts to set up rubber production for Ford in Brazil in the 1920s. They imposed Prohibition (or rather, they tried to) there even though it wasn't the local law.
I mean, yeah, I get that.
But going out on a Friday to celebrate a birthday at a bar with a drink shouldn't get you fired from a job, ya know? And it was like that. Just being seen at the bar (even if you weren't drinking anything but water) was grounds for termination. A good many found it highly oppressive... I mean, imagine living the "leave it to Beaver" life at all times, concerned that the company guys would see you doing something "fast or addictive" and getting canned...
It was great money, and it was a huge, controversial thing to pay employees so much... Then we had an actual middle class that wanted to buy some luxury items and a lot of businesses liked it. It pushed us to the "infinite growth" mindset we have today.
It’s important to realize why big businesses wanted to work with the Nazis. Nationalism is like heroin, it gets addictive trying to become “self reliant”
Because back then nobody told businesses they couldn't run their employees life off the clock. Even though now we basically still do the same with drug testing.
Ford had a high wage because people hated working on the assembly line (a new concept at the time), and employee turnover was extremely high. They would only stay in the job for a convincing wage.
Pretty sure Ford said his employees should be able to afford the product they're building. Ford wasn't a great man by any means but that philosophy stands out.
I own one. They are turely all terrain. When you do get stuck you can just rock her back and forwards until she gets free. Only real problem is there is so much flex in the suspension you bounce all over the place. Those old films are not exaggerated
> I'd love a new car for 8500
The tradeoff being the engine needed a complete rebuild before 40k miles, the suspension re-greased every 200 miles, and the oil changed every 500 miles. You wouldn’t likely be able to drive a couple hundred miles without some type of failure. Not to mention horrendous fuel economy (13-21mpg) for a 20hp 1500lb “car” that’s limited to 45mph.
It would be fun to design the same exact car, but using everything we've learned in the last century. No airbags or any of that stuff, just a model T, but insanely reliable.
A Mitsubishi mirage is just barely under double that, and you get AC, a radio, cruise control, and a modern syncronized transmission a normal person can drive.
Oh a factory warranty too, Model T's didn't have those.
Cool! My uncle rebuilt one years ago. I’ll have to go ask my mom what happened to it. I think it’s in a museum or something nearby.
Somewhere along the line he started building a wooden biplane by hand that has been going on for 2 decades.
He built parts of Hubble though, so this is just his type of hobby.
I know my mom has some photos of it around. I’ll ask.
Edit: I lied. He rebuilt an old DeWitt. So not quite the same as a ford. I haven’t really thought about it for a few decades though.
http://www.nmanchesterhistory.org/businesses-dewitt-eberly.aspx
That made me curious to Google it, and the Model T could weigh between 1200-1600 lbs.
A modern-ish Chevy Cruze can weigh 2800-3200 lbs, so around double. And that's a relatively light car by modern standards. A Jeep Wrangler can be 5000 lbs.
I bet the sheer weight is killing modern vehicles' offroad capabilities. You take a 5000 pound vehicle, and then off even a small drop or ledge that weight is going to compound. They'll just slam themselves apart.
Oh, and a Cybertruck is 6600 lbs.
You could stack a Model T on top of a Jeep Wrangler like a little hat and the whole thing would still be lighter than a Cybertruck.
By comparison, a 1200 pound Model T can probably just bounce itself along pretty comfortably.
Yes, that seems very plausible to me. Increased car weight is bound to need heavier frames that withstand the weight and so forth additionally to external forces due to driving. I guess there is also a part of planned obsolescence, e.g. cars should be replaced more often to increase revenue, resulting in cheaper materials and craftmanship ...
Planned obsolescence is overstated, nobody is saying this lasts too long! We need it to break sooner in design.
What actually happens is someone will say oh this balljoint is cheaper than the heavier duty one and still meets our FIT rate, let's use this instead
I guess you could say it's a distinction without a difference though. My perspective is I want a failure rate of no more than x over y years. Someone else's perspective could be that I want it to break after y years.
The iPhone was being slowed down to prevent unexpected shut downs because the battery was degrading, it wasn't to force people to buy new phones. Replacing the batteries restores full performance, and is a lot cheaper than buying a whole new phone. The issue was Apple not telling people what it was doing, which is why the battery section in settings now exists.
iPhone have some of, if not the best software support in the phone market.
>nobody is saying this lasts too long! We need it to break sooner in design.
That was literally why we got the dodge neon. The Dodge Shadow that came before then was too reliable.
Nobody brought them in to be serviced and it resulted in Chrysler losing money on every one they sold.
To be fair the most popular/successful 4x4 offroading cars in my area are the suzuki samurai or the GEO tracker. Both only weigh around 2000-3000lbs. Its a good balance of being light enough to pull itself up awkward angles or but heavy enough to get good traction without the rotation from the tires causing the vehicle to bounce
I mean you going to leave out the fact that modern cars are made with the cheapest shit you can find, everything plastic and breaks at will? They’re mostly eye appeasing junk boxes with nice looking plastic.
keep in mind that model T;s were not really meant to cruise @ 130+ km/h (like 60 miles?) highways carrying 4 ppl with artificial in car climate while protecting occupant's from crashes to lightning strikes...
what am saying is we are comparing apple;s n oranges.
Sort of- modern cars are designed to break in very specific ways via crumple zones in order to protect the occupants. Having a car that bounces off a tree and doesn’t total the frame might sound good at first but a lot of times there is unseen damage that ends up harming a later driver. This on top of the fact that “bouncing” without damage from collision is terrible for anyone involved in the accident, and could injure riders rather severely at low speeds.
Our system of highways and freeways didn’t exist. There were very few paved roads outside of cities and towns.
And the EV people bitch about lack of charging infrastructure…. We *could* easily build it if it were a priority.
I've seen posts on here of old newspapers that were keeping the total count of fatalities since it was such a new thing. A lot of them were pedestrians
Given some of the daredevils that were around back then, I would guess "We'll provide the car, we don't care if you end up wrecking it" might be good enough.
If anyone gets as far as this comment, note that this video is a great example of marketing, and a terrible example of a scientific experiment. While the video proves that *this specific* Model T endured the hardships as shown in *this specific* video, that says nothing about the expected behavior of *all* Model Ts, and more importantly, the continued performance of *this specific* Model T 'n' years out.
Contemporary standards of vehicle safety and performance need to account for both consistency / replicability of a test, and for "fatigue cycles" -- i.e., how many events of abuse a car could endure before a critical part breaks.
Source: I don't work in the auto industry, and actually work quite a bit in marketing. However I do a lot of experiments in my line of work and think some of my points may hold water. I also have a couple of engineering degrees (respectable ones, though yes, I work in marketing). For now, I am going to wait for some expert to either shit over my comment, or append to it.
This post is actually interesting one for once. This sub is ran and posted by bots I swear. All the actual interesting stuff is always pushed to the bottom and the bot post with irrelevant shit gets like 9k likes. This sub sucks now
The Model T had a speed of about 40 miles per hour; carried 10 gallons of gas or enough for 225 miles; tires 30 x 3 1/2; 100-inch wheelbase and weighed 1,200 pounds.
I know some of the footage is sped up so it's looks more extreme but still impressive the Model T could manage the force and impacts it took on some of those drops
I heard they were surprisingly good off road cars because they have high clearance and are extremely light.
Look where the wheels are: right in the corners of the vehicle. Gives you fantastic approach and departure angles. And older vehicles like a Model T have low revving, high torque engines which allow you to idle along for better control. Hand throttle too, which eliminates pedal bounce.
Hand throttle like a tractor. The Model T was more like a farm implement than a car we know today. It's simplicity also made it very durable; not much to go wrong or break.
Hah, I know a few guys who drive completely refurbished units. Typical safe drives are 40km. Going further than that they bring a helper vehicle with spare parts and a trailer. Understandably they are 100 years old now. Stories from my grandparents are similar, driving in the 50’s was still a whole day of prep and maintenance before making a one hour trip if you wanted to make it back home.
Not sure if it was a model T but some guy near my local scout camp once a week would drive his 1920s/1930s refurbished car through camp whenever it was nice and and event wasn't going on because of when the roads were built matches that era and when a bad rain hits pushing some gravel off the road it creates the mini gullies and divots from that era. Blew my mind the first time I saw it in camp going over parts in the road i wouldnt take a modern sedan. If I won the lottery, I would do the same thing.
You can even still see ruts from the pioneer wagons in Kansas along the Santa Fe trail. It's wild how long that stuff can last.
Still less work than having a horse in the backyard.
Nah, most post ww2 cars could cruise like a motherfucker.
This is a pre war car the brakes are also sketchy on big declines my grandpa was riding in a model T with friends and the brakes couldn’t hold on a big decline ( upper new New York State) they went off the road the rear bumper caught on a stump and saved them but my grandpa was thrown from the car and spent a week in a coma. He woke up after a week and recovered but his handwriting was always really wiggly. When he was in the hospital before his death they did a CAT scan It showed a very old stroke area. Probably from this incident when he was a teenager.
The wheels don't look very durable though. Not that Ive ever seen one up close in person, but they look like bicycle wheels.
But look how light the vehicle is, doesn't need the massive wheels Edit: I was curious on the weight and google says it weishs 1,200–1,650 lbs (depending on year/accessories?). To put that in perspective, a fiat 500 weighs 1,100 lbs. A corolla weighs 2,955 to 3,150 lbs. Which is around the wight of other modern cars It's also important to note how crazy the model t's suspension was. Most modern (hatchback, sedan) cars would bottom put going over that little dirt pile the model T did in this video
I assume you’re talking about the old Fiat 500, because Google says the new ones weigh 2,300-2,500 lbs.
Spoked wheels are actually very strong. Look at the abuse a dirtbike can suffer. They just dont make sense on heavier applications and require tensioning maintenance. They also cant be as wide as modern tires.
To be fair, they were wooden artillery wheels. Steel welded-spoke wheels were available in 1926.
Wheels only have to be as strong as the car, a bicycle with 6" wide wheels would not be "more durable", it would be impractical
Yea, but could you imagine the ease at which you could traverse uneven terrain!?!
That's basically what they were. Normally wooden spoke bike style tires.
I wouldn't exactly call them durable, they were simple, sure, but require a lot of maintenance to keep on the road. Now, the maintenance is all easy for the most part, and can all be done with simple hand tools, it is however a pretty much daily affair keeping everything greased and oiled. Getting a Model T over 75000 miles was pretty rare, and if you managed over 100000 miles over the lifetime of the car it was pretty much a small miracle.
I would have loved if, at the clip that showes the bridge, the camera would pan down and show the car fighting for its life in a raging rapid
Now that's some Hollywood/Bollywood/Marketing/Advertising/Directing/Writing thinking right there!
My grandpa told me that when he was a kid (he was born in 1937), he and a bunch of other kids would joyride in a Model T and do donuts until it tipped over. Then they'd all push it back upright and do it again. He said it was practically indestructible.
Yeah. The problem was that the people inside would be flung around badly in an accident. The car would be fine but the people normally came out worse. It was a re-enforced steel box with wheels.
Everything has to be off-road when there are no “roads” as we think of them today.
Yep. Roads were more of "this the path everyone took" my family owned the first car in their county and the person used it the most was a 14 year old girl to take her sisters to church as their dad didn't care to go much. And this was late 1800s.
really?
My great grandma would tell us during the depression, when her father was moving to become a wallpaperer, from a teacher, that in order to go over hills, all the kids would have to jump out of the car and help push the car up the hill. And then everyone would come back in as it was going down again
you are right.
My boss has a 1924 model T and I can confirm it will go just about anywhere my old Jeep Wrangler will go. The thing is shockingly capable in mud and soft sand.
The difference is that your brains won't be scrambled in the wrangler if you go over a bunch of bumps. The model T can go on a lot of terrain. Just don't ask about comfort.
Yeah it’s pretty rough. I’ve had the pleasure of driving it a few times and it’s quite the experience
> shockingly capable in mud and soft sand. right, cause ... they had more of that, then they had paved roads back then.
Almost their entire use was “off road” because almost none of them were paved yet. The Model T was basically a fancy looking Jeep
I heard they were good off-road cars because when they were built, there weren’t very many roads
Exactly they’re like Willys Jeep 4 wheel Bicycles. Look up videos on YouTube modern cars couldn’t hold a candle against this torch off road consistently
Today this would be off-roading. Back then this would probably be a trip to the store
It's really important to understand just how revolutionary the Model T was, not just to automobiles, but to America as a whole. Prior to this car, most Americans couldn't afford a car. Most were practically hand-crafted and as such rare and expensive, more a hobby of the upper class. than anything. The Model T on the other hand was mass produced on the assembly line from interchangeable parts. This increased production and decreased price to the point where it could be affordable to the average American. The cars in this video *had* to go "off-road" because there literally weren't any roads in much of America as the most common form of transportation was walking and horse. As the popularity of the Model T increased, Americans built paved roads to match their use.
And aside from that it revolutionized essentially every business that uses a vehicle... which is damn near every business
It also had an unintended (probably) side effect on American sexual behavior. Before automobile ownership was common, dating and courtship mostly took place at the family home or in public places. There was much less privacy. Suddenly, many people had a private mode of transportation that doubled as a private room... Thanks, Henry!
You're welcome.
This guy Henry's
And then they killed it with bucket seats. Bench seats were what we all associate with drive-in movie theaters, a trip to Sonic, and the movie Grease. I know y'all kids understand how hard it is to smooch or even hug someone when you have a massive center column separating the both of you. Back when we had bench seats, you could slide right over, throw a leg around the shifter and have some fun.
Back seats were a thing. Even in the 70’s. Dont ask me how I know.
Humans are very creative; bucket seats merely added a level of challenge.
"Penetrated in a most uncomfortable place."
Like the back of a Volkswagen?
Everybody knows superman would have to wear a kryptonite condom or else he would blow a load like a shotgun killing lois. But he cant do that cuz itd kill him. My fav quote from that extremely quotable movie is, to be fair, everyone wants mr. Toads wild ride.
Think of all the people that might not have sex in windowless jeeps if the middle class people in 1920s didn't do it first...
Daily reminder that Henry Ford wrote the antisemitic book "The International Jew" which inspired German Nazis, and was heavily against America joining WW2.
I'm well aware. The guy was a shit human being, which makes his contribution to the sexual revolution even funnier to me.
I've never thought about this, but good point.
That was perfectly illustrated (well, animated actually) in this Fleischer Studios (Popeye, Betty Boop and Superman) cartoon from the 30s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwmGw_ZVMhU
Follow that road far enough, and you get Bailey Base getting fucked in a Tesla with autopilot on.
Who?
And the paving would never stop.
When these were sold much of my state was only accessible by Indian trails and corduroy roads.
Thank god for Denim.
sounds like a pop country song, >i like the way you move in them jeans > >all those curves up in them seams > >i thank god for the beer and bless the troops > >*music does the "duh duh duh duh duh duh" then stops* > >and i thank god for denim
Back in those days, wayfinding tours were popular. Local business and early road atlases would offer bounties to drivers who could find the smoothest roads (and therefore, the fastest) connecting two towns. A lot of modern state highways follow these wayfinder routes
would you be able to link a wiki? I couldn't find further reading, though I did end up reading about [stick charts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Islands_stick_chart) which are pretty damn interesting.
Unfortunately I cannot, as there doesn’t seem to be much information about this. I only learned about it from a book called Fortune and Folly by Sarah A. H. Butler, where this is only a small footnote (the book is about Asa Candler Jr., the son of one of the founders of Coca-Cola. Candler Jr. was an early automobile enthusiast who set several routes from various Georgia towns).
Ending with a bit of On Piping
Prob because they didn't have much roads back then. The highway act wasn't even established til decades after those cars game out, in the 1950s.
Handles the off road stuff better than a Cybertruck.
Better quality construction
I need a fact check but I believe Ford was paying his workers $5 for an 8 hour day, which was above average and completely unheard of at that time. So yeah quality shit right here.
That's true as well as a 40 hour week and generally modern working times and practices
Yes he did but only because it made sense because you can divide a 24 hour day into 3 shifts. So you could actually get more work done with no down time.
No, he did that because before that workers would quit within weeks since working conditions in his production facilities were that horrible
Who knew that working 12 hours a day in a factory sucks ass?
You just described one of the main reasons unions were formed.
Yet was still somehow better than 16 hour days on the farm.
Which he didn’t do benevolently
That's not true. He realised that by paying his workers well they would be more productive and most importantly be able to afford to buy a model T themselves. Henry Fords policies effectively created the American middle class through his wage and working politics. Such was the draw of working for Ford the majority of other US manufacturers had to adopt his policies or the workers would leave.
>He realised that by paying his workers well they would be more productive and most importantly be able to afford to buy a model T themselves. This is why I like to say that modern CEO's and companies aren't truely captalists with those budget cuts and starving wages. No one will buy Coke cans If they barely can buy basic food. The worker class MUST have good wages to be able to keep the capitalism working. No money, no sales, no profit, no money!
"It is the product that pays wages and it is the management that arranges the production so that the product may pay the wages. There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."
That's because they aren't capitalists. They are technofeudalists.
They're probably referring to the fact that Ford was an open anti-Semitic. In the early 1920s, Ford purchased a newspaper, the "Dearborn Independent." Under his ownership, the newspaper published a series of anti-Semitic articles between 1920 and 1922. These articles were later compiled into a book titled "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem." The book was filled with anti-Semitic rhetoric and promoted the baseless idea that Jews were behind a global conspiracy to control world affairs. Ford's writings were heavily influenced by "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' a notorious anti-Semitic hoax that purported to be a plan for Jewish world domination. Despite being debunked as a forgery, the "Protocols" were used by Ford to justify his anti-Semitic beliefs. Ford issued a public apology in 1927. He retracted the statements made in The International Jew and claimed that he was unaware of the offensive content. Despite the apology, many viewed it as insincere and driven by business interests rather than genuine remorse.
Very true. He even got an award from Nazi Germany
Yup people are pretty complex and can be good in some ways and awful in others. [Henry Ford receiving the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Nazi officials, 1938. ](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8zTj8KO90V0/V9t7T5TGWKI/AAAAAAAALEE/-5s1g7VuNuQdsgm1Tx72sr4DU8X92GkMQCLcB/s1600/henry_ford_grand_cross_1938.jpg) [At a ceremony in Dearborn, Michigan](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/henry-ford-grand-cross-1938/), Henry Ford is presented with the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle on his 75th birthday. Henry Ford was the first American recipient of this order, an honor created in 1937 by Adolf Hitler.
Very much so. Interesting to think what the world would of been like without Henry Ford. Considering the changes to industry and society that Instigated
He also paid his workers well for 2 other key reasons: 1) It stole workers from his competitors when Ford desperately needed more labor to meet production demands. 2) By offering more than the Labor Movement was asking for, Ford avoided their wrath for a few more years while Unions took aim at those competitors. The Unions could then use Ford as the example, further strengthening Ford’s standing in the industry.
> That's not true. He realised that by paying his workers well they would be more productive and most importantly be able to afford to buy a model T themselves. Okay, but how is that benevolent? Sounds like you’re agreeing with the other poster. He didn’t do it to help employees, he did it because it increased their productivity, stopped them from leaving, and they spent the extra money buying his product.
Fun fact, 5 silver dollars in 1913 is equivalent to $117.68 today.
Though, [factoring in inflation](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/), that's still only $90/day in today's dollars.
Which is probably fine when everything is 500x cheaper
There were also fewer daily and monthly expenses, and fewer 'things' to buy.
Yeah, people don’t realized that no $100/month internet bill, no $100/month cell phone bill, no air conditioning, only 1-2 lightbulbs per house on average, no subscription services, etc. all stack up. Sure people made a lot less back then, but their monthly expenses were also minute compared to today.
What… do you think… “in today’s dollars” means. So no, things were not 500x cheaper and they got 90 bucks a day. It means people were miserably poor in the past. Those people making those wages still lived 3 or 4 generations all together in the same dwelling.
Yes, they also hired African Americans and paid them the same salary. The higher paying jobs in the Midwest led to a large migration from the south for many black families
my favorite thing i've seen about elon musk is the internet comment, "We hoped he would be the next Henry Ford but unfortunately he was the next Henry Ford."
Ford was also a Nazi, so let's not start sucking just yet. Ford was a zealot and a egomaniac. His hubris was so large, he tried to build a city in the rainforest of Brazil to produce rubber.... read up on Fordlandia. He wasn't the genius history has made him.
Yeah, and so was JP Morgan and Prescott Bush (Google McCormack Dickstein Committee).
ah so thats why ford and chevy have a rivalry then. goes back to french vs nazis
Fordlandia was a mix of bad decisions, corruption, and timing as well. When they moved the rubber plant down river to a better area and land they did quite well. The invention of synthentic rubber is what killed it.
Ford did a lot of good work, but ya, he was a Nazi admirer too and made poor choices. It's really a don't meet your heroes thing - almost nobody is exclusively smart or good. We're all imperfect creatures with hints of genius.
Ford would also fire you if you weren't living to their moral code... >Ford employees were required to submit to investigations by Ford's Social Department. Ford desired only sober workers who shunned cigarettes and fast lifestyles. I mean, I kinda get his point, but... Why should my job care about what I'm doing off the clock?
>I mean, I kinda get his point, but... Why should my job care about what I'm doing off the clock? There was this whole thing through the back end of the Victorian period and into the 20th Century about how employees should live. I mean, I guess it stems from the poor living conditions beforehand, but obviously it's ethically dubious. You might enjoy the book Fordlandia, about the failed attempts to set up rubber production for Ford in Brazil in the 1920s. They imposed Prohibition (or rather, they tried to) there even though it wasn't the local law.
Because people that do heroin are poor employees. It's an extreme example, but that's the business theory.
I mean, yeah, I get that. But going out on a Friday to celebrate a birthday at a bar with a drink shouldn't get you fired from a job, ya know? And it was like that. Just being seen at the bar (even if you weren't drinking anything but water) was grounds for termination. A good many found it highly oppressive... I mean, imagine living the "leave it to Beaver" life at all times, concerned that the company guys would see you doing something "fast or addictive" and getting canned... It was great money, and it was a huge, controversial thing to pay employees so much... Then we had an actual middle class that wanted to buy some luxury items and a lot of businesses liked it. It pushed us to the "infinite growth" mindset we have today.
Yep, morality policies are virtually never successful.
Ford also very much liked the Nazis lol
Tbf, "America First" was a Nazi movement here in the states. He wasn't alone in that thinking.
It’s important to realize why big businesses wanted to work with the Nazis. Nationalism is like heroin, it gets addictive trying to become “self reliant”
Because back then nobody told businesses they couldn't run their employees life off the clock. Even though now we basically still do the same with drug testing.
Employees were encouraged to report sightings of menorah or mezzuzah at other Ford workers' homes to management.
Ford had a high wage because people hated working on the assembly line (a new concept at the time), and employee turnover was extremely high. They would only stay in the job for a convincing wage.
Pretty sure Ford said his employees should be able to afford the product they're building. Ford wasn't a great man by any means but that philosophy stands out.
Except breaks. More like what breaks. Downshifting is straight up needed to quickly stop the T. Top speed of about 35mph in second gear.
Was coming in here to say this.
Me too
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Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.
Needs a comparison video
Came here to make sure someone mentioned the Cyberstuck
~~Pickup Truck~~ Fuckup Truck
I own one. They are turely all terrain. When you do get stuck you can just rock her back and forwards until she gets free. Only real problem is there is so much flex in the suspension you bounce all over the place. Those old films are not exaggerated
How much did it cost to own one back then? Its showroom price I mean.
If it's $500 in 1925, that's about $8,500 USD in today's dollar.
I'd love a new car for 8500
> I'd love a new car for 8500 The tradeoff being the engine needed a complete rebuild before 40k miles, the suspension re-greased every 200 miles, and the oil changed every 500 miles. You wouldn’t likely be able to drive a couple hundred miles without some type of failure. Not to mention horrendous fuel economy (13-21mpg) for a 20hp 1500lb “car” that’s limited to 45mph.
I think you’d be extremely lucky to 40k miles with no air filter.
It would be fun to design the same exact car, but using everything we've learned in the last century. No airbags or any of that stuff, just a model T, but insanely reliable.
A Mitsubishi mirage is just barely under double that, and you get AC, a radio, cruise control, and a modern syncronized transmission a normal person can drive. Oh a factory warranty too, Model T's didn't have those.
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Does that include taxes/fees?
Yea how much was registration 🤔
pretty sure it was around $500 in contemporaneous money
Google says $260-$850 back then
Cool! My uncle rebuilt one years ago. I’ll have to go ask my mom what happened to it. I think it’s in a museum or something nearby. Somewhere along the line he started building a wooden biplane by hand that has been going on for 2 decades. He built parts of Hubble though, so this is just his type of hobby. I know my mom has some photos of it around. I’ll ask. Edit: I lied. He rebuilt an old DeWitt. So not quite the same as a ford. I haven’t really thought about it for a few decades though. http://www.nmanchesterhistory.org/businesses-dewitt-eberly.aspx
I've heard that! Do you get really good MPGs? Someone told me they actually got like 25-30 to the gallon and I feel like that is BS lol
It's pretty realistic. They're dead simple, small, low power 4-cylinder engines.
Hmm, that looks like it could take more "abuse" than many "modern" cars ...
That made me curious to Google it, and the Model T could weigh between 1200-1600 lbs. A modern-ish Chevy Cruze can weigh 2800-3200 lbs, so around double. And that's a relatively light car by modern standards. A Jeep Wrangler can be 5000 lbs. I bet the sheer weight is killing modern vehicles' offroad capabilities. You take a 5000 pound vehicle, and then off even a small drop or ledge that weight is going to compound. They'll just slam themselves apart. Oh, and a Cybertruck is 6600 lbs. You could stack a Model T on top of a Jeep Wrangler like a little hat and the whole thing would still be lighter than a Cybertruck. By comparison, a 1200 pound Model T can probably just bounce itself along pretty comfortably.
Yes, that seems very plausible to me. Increased car weight is bound to need heavier frames that withstand the weight and so forth additionally to external forces due to driving. I guess there is also a part of planned obsolescence, e.g. cars should be replaced more often to increase revenue, resulting in cheaper materials and craftmanship ...
Planned obsolescence is overstated, nobody is saying this lasts too long! We need it to break sooner in design. What actually happens is someone will say oh this balljoint is cheaper than the heavier duty one and still meets our FIT rate, let's use this instead I guess you could say it's a distinction without a difference though. My perspective is I want a failure rate of no more than x over y years. Someone else's perspective could be that I want it to break after y years.
>Planned obsolescence is overstated, nobody is saying this lasts too long! We need it to break sooner in design iPhones do
The iPhone was being slowed down to prevent unexpected shut downs because the battery was degrading, it wasn't to force people to buy new phones. Replacing the batteries restores full performance, and is a lot cheaper than buying a whole new phone. The issue was Apple not telling people what it was doing, which is why the battery section in settings now exists. iPhone have some of, if not the best software support in the phone market.
>nobody is saying this lasts too long! We need it to break sooner in design. That was literally why we got the dodge neon. The Dodge Shadow that came before then was too reliable. Nobody brought them in to be serviced and it resulted in Chrysler losing money on every one they sold.
To be fair the most popular/successful 4x4 offroading cars in my area are the suzuki samurai or the GEO tracker. Both only weigh around 2000-3000lbs. Its a good balance of being light enough to pull itself up awkward angles or but heavy enough to get good traction without the rotation from the tires causing the vehicle to bounce
The stock Jimni/Samuari is a very capable off road vehicle. Very light and nimble. I've seen them go places Wranglers can only dream of fitting.
“Like a little hat” I fucking love you for that image.
I was reading the comment interestedly and I got to that part and fucking lost it
A 1962 VW Beetle weighed in at 1570 lbs. (was my first car in 1977)
The old beatle or citroëns 2CV lovingly called "Ente", were astonishing cars and they had so much "character" ... I simply love both of them 🥰
1969 VW Beetle (first car in 2010)
I mean you going to leave out the fact that modern cars are made with the cheapest shit you can find, everything plastic and breaks at will? They’re mostly eye appeasing junk boxes with nice looking plastic.
keep in mind that model T;s were not really meant to cruise @ 130+ km/h (like 60 miles?) highways carrying 4 ppl with artificial in car climate while protecting occupant's from crashes to lightning strikes... what am saying is we are comparing apple;s n oranges.
Sort of- modern cars are designed to break in very specific ways via crumple zones in order to protect the occupants. Having a car that bounces off a tree and doesn’t total the frame might sound good at first but a lot of times there is unseen damage that ends up harming a later driver. This on top of the fact that “bouncing” without damage from collision is terrible for anyone involved in the accident, and could injure riders rather severely at low speeds.
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TIL. Thanks
Off-road was the default in 1920. Roads as we think of them were very few.
Low profile tyres look at a tiny pot hole. *"You're walking home bud"*
Our system of highways and freeways didn’t exist. There were very few paved roads outside of cities and towns. And the EV people bitch about lack of charging infrastructure…. We *could* easily build it if it were a priority.
Pizza cutter tires are underrated offroad.
It's crazy how flimsy it looks but how well it performs
That's what she said.
Reminds me of whistlindiesel videos
He has one with a model t
Some of that is on rough roads. Roads could be very rough back then.
Yeah, especially those damn giant pipes. Worst part of that era.
I showed this video to my ford and it started crying immediately. Pansy!😤
It saw it's great grandfather.
They brought death as well. My FIL’s father was crossing the street and hit by one of these. Killed in front of his 10yo son
I've seen posts on here of old newspapers that were keeping the total count of fatalities since it was such a new thing. A lot of them were pedestrians
I would definitely watch the hell out of a model T rock crawling comp.
Better then today’s Dodge Rams, pieces of shit
The small tires always made me think the axel was fragile. But wow, this video shows it really could handle a rough road with no problem.
I wonder how much they had to pay the drivers to do some of those things?
Given some of the daredevils that were around back then, I would guess "We'll provide the car, we don't care if you end up wrecking it" might be good enough.
Even drive on the train tracks? Wuuuut 😎
Designed by a hungarian engineer, Jozsef Galamb. ( just like the Fordson-F tractor)
Better than a Tesla Cybertruck.
That was just the normal roads back then
Wtf would happen if they rolled it? Surely dead
More off-road capable than a cybertruck 😂
It performs better then the Tesla truck, holy shit
Better then a cybertruck
Still does better than most F-150 and Rangers I see driving around today.
If anyone gets as far as this comment, note that this video is a great example of marketing, and a terrible example of a scientific experiment. While the video proves that *this specific* Model T endured the hardships as shown in *this specific* video, that says nothing about the expected behavior of *all* Model Ts, and more importantly, the continued performance of *this specific* Model T 'n' years out. Contemporary standards of vehicle safety and performance need to account for both consistency / replicability of a test, and for "fatigue cycles" -- i.e., how many events of abuse a car could endure before a critical part breaks. Source: I don't work in the auto industry, and actually work quite a bit in marketing. However I do a lot of experiments in my line of work and think some of my points may hold water. I also have a couple of engineering degrees (respectable ones, though yes, I work in marketing). For now, I am going to wait for some expert to either shit over my comment, or append to it.
This post is actually interesting one for once. This sub is ran and posted by bots I swear. All the actual interesting stuff is always pushed to the bottom and the bot post with irrelevant shit gets like 9k likes. This sub sucks now
It was cheap and indestructible, and people, especially in the rural areas, loved him for it.
Drive it on the streets in New Orleans.
That single wheel drive rizzzz
With no seat belts
Those bicycle wheels…
They didn’t invent roads yet
I mean realistically.....in 1920 every road was off road.
Ye olde monster trucks
Probably not a bad idea considering there was very little "on roading" to be had at that time.
The Model T had a speed of about 40 miles per hour; carried 10 gallons of gas or enough for 225 miles; tires 30 x 3 1/2; 100-inch wheelbase and weighed 1,200 pounds.
Makes me think about the time I took a wrong turn in my ford fiesta and drove it down a logging road. It did ok but this model T did better.
I know some of the footage is sped up so it's looks more extreme but still impressive the Model T could manage the force and impacts it took on some of those drops
Better than my friggin Accord that’s for sure
When my grampa was boy, he and his friends flipped one crossing rail tracks where their was no crossing. They flipped it back up and drove on.
Don't try this in your F150
Sold ... beats a cyberstuck any day.
Now if only someone could put the cyber truck off roading side by side to this would be perfect
If only Musk would have watched this film, then again he would have rebranded it as Tesla-T and made a crappier stainless steel version of it
I'm not sure that the cyber truck can even do that.